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jussian  Fairy  Tales. 


A  CHOICE  COLLECTION 


— OF — 


MUSCOVITE  FOLK-LORE. 


W.    R.    S.    RALSTON,    M.    A., 

OF  THE  BRITISH  MUSEUM, 

CORRESPONDING  MEMBER  OF  THE  IMPERIAL  GEOGRAPHICAL  SOCIETY 

OF  RUSSIA,    AUTHOR  OF    "THE  SONGS  OF  THE   RUSSIAN 

PEOPLE,"  "KRILOFANDHIS  FABLES,"  ETC. 


New  York: 
POLLARD    &    MOSS, 

47  John  Street, 
1887. 


Eo  tf)e  JEemorg  of 
ALEXANDER    AFANASIEF 

TO    HIM    SO     DEEPLY    INDEBTED. 


PREFACE. 


THE  STORIES  contained  in  the  following  pages 
are  taken  from  the  collections  published  by 
Afanasief,  Khudyakof,  Erlenvein,  and  Chudinsky.  The 
South-Russian  collections  of  Kulish  and  Rudchenko  I 
have  been  able  to  use  but  little,  there  being  no  com- 
plete dictionary  available  of  the  dialect,  or  rather  the 
language,  in  which  they  are  written.  Of  these  works 
that  of  Afanasief  is  by  far  the  most  important,  extending 
to  nearly  3,000  pages,  and  containing  332  distinct 
stories — of  many  of  which  several  variants  are  given, 
sometimes  as  many  as  five.  Khudyakof's  collection 
contains  122  skazkas — as  the  Russian  folk-tales  are 
called — Erlenvein's  41,  and  Chudinsky's  31.  Afanasief 
has  also  published  a  separate  volume,  containing  33 
"legends,"  and  he  has  inserted  a  great  number  of 
stories  of  various  kinds  in  his  "  Poetic  views  of  the  Old 
Slavonians  about  Nature,"  a  work  to  which  I  have  had 
constant  recourse. 

From  the  stories  contained  in  what  may  be  called  the 
"  chap-book  literature  "  of  Russia,  I  have  made  but  few 
extracts.  It  may,  however,  be  as  well  to  say  a  few 
words   about   them.     There   is   a  Russian  word  /ид, 

diminutive  lubok,  meaning  the  soft  bark  of  the  lime 

$ 


6  PREFACE. 

tree,  which  at  one  time  was  used  instead  of  paper 
The  popular  tales  which  were  current  in  former  days 
were  at  first  printed  on  sheets  or  strips  of  this  substance, 
whence  the  term  lubochnuiya  came  to  be  given  to  all 
such  productions  of  the  cheap  press,  even  after  paper 
had  .taken  the  place  of  bark.* 

The  stories  which  have  thus  been  preserved  have  no 
small  interest  of  their  own,  but  they  cannot  be  consid- 
ered as  fair  illustrations  of  Russian  folk-lore,  for  their 
compilers  in  many  cases  took  them  from  any  sources 
to  which  they  had  access,  whether  eastern  or  western, 
merely  adapting  what  they  borrowed  to  Russian  forms 
of  thought  and  speech.  Through  some  such  process, 
for  instance,  seem  to  have  passed  the  very  popular 
Russian  stories  of  Eruslan  Lazarevich  and  of  Bova 
Korolevich.  They  have  often  been  quoted  as  "  crea- 
tions of  the  Slavonic  mind,"  but  there  seems  to  be  no 
reason  for  doubting  that  they  are  merely  Russian 
adaptations,  the  first  of  the  adventures  of  the  Persian 
Rustem,  the  second  of  those  of  the  Italian  Buovo 
di  Antona,  our  Sir  Bevis  of  Hampton.  The  editors 
of  these  "  chap-book  skazkas  "  belonged  to  the  pre- 
scientific  period,  and  had  a  purely  commercial  object 
in  view.     Their  stories  were  intended  simply  to  sell. 

A  German  version  of  seventeen  of  these  "  chap-book 
tales,"  to  which  was  prefixed  an  introduction  by  Jacob 
Grimm,  was  published  some  forty  years  ago,f  and  has 

*  So  our  word  "book,"  the  German  Buck,  is  derived  from  the  Buche  or  beech  tree, 
of  which  the  old  Runic  staves  were  formed.     Cf.  liber  and  /}£/ЗЯв£. 

t  "  Russische  Volksmarchen  in  den  Urschriften  gesammelt  und  ins  I  feutsche 
libersetzt  von  A.  Dietrich."  Leipzig,  1831. 


PREFACE.  t 

been  translated  into  English.*  Somewhat  later,  also, 
appeared  a  German  version  of  twelve  more  of  these 
tales. f 

Of  late  years  several  articles  have  appeared  in  some 
of  the  German  periodicals, %  giving  accounts  or  transla- 
tions of  some  of  the  Russian  Popular  Tales.  But  no 
thorough  investigation  of  them  appeared  in  print,  out 
of  Russia,  until  the  publication  last  year  of  the  erudite 
work  on  "  Zoological  Mythology  "  by  Professor  Angelo 
de  Gubernatis.  In  it  he  has  given  a  summary  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  stories  contained  in  the  collections 
of  Afanasief  and  Erlenvein,  and  so  fully  has  he  de- 
scribed the  part  played  in  them  by  the  members  of  the 
animal  world  that  I  have  omitted,  in  the  present  volume, 
the  chapter  I  had  prepared  on  the  Russian  "  Beast- 
Epos." 

Another  chapter  which  I  have,  at  least  for  a  time, 
suppressed,  is  that  in  which  I  had  attempted  to  say 
something  about  the  origin  and  the  meaning  of  the 
Russian  folk-tales.  The  subject  is  so  extensive  that 
it  requires  for  its  proper  treatment  more  space  than  a 
single  chapter  could  grant  ;  and  therefore,  though  not 
without  reluctance,  I  have  left  the  stories  I  have 
quoted  to  speak  for  themselves,  except  in  those  in- 
stances in  which  I  have  given  the  chief  parallels  to  be 
found  in  the  two  collections  of  foreign  folk-tales  best 
known  to  the  English  reader,  together  with  a  few 
others  which  happened  to  fall  within  the  range  of  my 

*  "  Russian  Popular  Tales,"  Chapman  and  Hall,  London,  1857. 

t  "  Die  altesten  Volksmarchen  der  Russen.     Von  J.  N.  Vogl."     Wien,  1841. 

%  Such  as  the  "  Orient  und  Occident,"  "  Ausland,"  &c. 


8  PREFACE. 

own  reading.  Professor  de  Gubernatis  has  discussed 
at  length,  and  with  much  learning,  the  esoteric  mean- 
ing of  the  skazkas,  and  their  bearing  upon  the  ques- 
tions to  which  the  "  solar  theory  "  of  myth-explanation 
has  given  rise.  To  his  volumes,  and  to  those  of  Mr 
Cox,  I  refer  all  who  are  interested  in  those  fascina- 
ting enquiries.  My  chief  aim  has  been  to  familiarize 
English  readers  with  the  Russian  folk-tale  ;  the  his- 
torical and  mythological  problems  involved  in  it  can 
be  discussed  at  a  later  period.  Before  long,  in  all 
probability,  a  copious  flood  of  light  will  be  poured 
upon  the  connexion  of  the  Popular  Tales  of  Russia 
with  those  of  other  lands  by  one  of  those  scholars  who 
are  best  qualified  to  deal  with  the  subject.* 

Besides  the  stories  about  animals,  I  have  left 
unnoticed  two  other  groups  of  skazkas — those  which 
relate  to  historical  events,  and  those  in  which  figure 
the  heroes  of  the  Russian  "epic  poems"  or  "metrical 
romances.  "  My  next  volume  will  be  devoted  to  the 
Builinas,  as  those  poems  are  called,  and  in  it  the 
skazkas  which  are  connected  with  them  will  find  their 
fitting  place.  In  it,  also,  I  hope  to  find  space  for  the 
discussion  of  many  questions  which  in  the  present 
volume  I  have  been  forced  to  leave  unnoticed. 

The  fifty-one  stories  which  I  have  translated  at 
length  I  have  rendered  as  literally  as  possible.  In  the 
very  rare  instances  in  which  I  have  found  it  necessary 
to  insert  any  words  by  way  of  explanation,  I  have 

*  Professor  Reinhold  Kbhler,  who  is  said  to  be  preparing  a  work  on  the  Skazkas, 
in  co-operation  with  Professor  Jiilg,  the  well-known  editor  and  translator  of  the 
"  Siddhi  Kiir,"  and  "  Ardshi  Bordschi  Khan." 


PREFACE.  9 

(except  in  the  case  of  such  additions  as  '•  ne  said  "  or 
the  like)  enclosed  them  between  brackets.  In  giving 
summaries,  also,  I  have  kept  closely  to  the  text,  and 
always  translated  literally  the  passages  marked  as 
quotations.  In  the  imitation  of  a  finished  work  of  art, 
elaboration  and  polish  are  meet  and  due,  but  in  a 
transcript  from  nature  what  is  most  required  is 
fidelity.  An  "  untouched  "  photograph  is  in  certain 
•cases  infinitely  preferable  to  one  which  has  been 
carefully  "worked  upon."  And  it  is,  as  it  were,  a 
photograph  of  the  Russian  story-teller  that  I  have 
tried  to  produce,  and  not  an  ideal  portrait. 


The  following  are  the  principal  Russian  books  to 
which  reference  has  been  made  : — 

Afanasief  (A.  N.).  Narodnuiya  Russkiya  Skazki*  [Russian  Populai 
Tales].  8  pts.  Moscow,  1863-60-63.  Narodnuiya  Russkiya 
Legenduit  [Russian  Popular  Legends].  Moscow,  1859.  Poetic- 
heskiya  Vozzryeniya  Slavyanna  Prirodu  [Poetic  Views  of  the  Slavo 
nians  about  Nature].  J  3  vols.     Moscow,  1865-69. 

Khudyayof  (I.  A.).  Velikorusskiya  Skazki  [Great-Russian  Tales]. 
Moscow,  i860. 

Chudinsky  (E.  A.).  Russkiya  Narodnuiya  Skazki,  etc.  [Russian 
Popular  Tales,  etc.].     Moscow,  1864. 

Erlenvein  (A.  A.).     Narodnuiya  Skazki,  etc.    [Popular  Tales,  col- 
lected by  village  schoolmasters  in  the  Government  of  Tula].  Moscow, 
1863 
•  In  my  copy,  pt.  1  and  2  are  of  the  3d,  and  pt.  3  and  4  are  of  the  2d  edition.     By 

euch  a  note  as  "  Afanasief,"  1.     No.  2,"  I  mean  to  refer  to  the  second  story  of  the  first 

part  of  this  work. 

t  This  book  is  now  out  of  print,  and  copies  fetch  a  very  high  price.     I  refer  to  it  in 

my  notes  as  "  Afanaseif,  Legendui." 
X  This  work  is  always  referred  to  in  my  notes  as  "  Afanasief,  P.  V.  S." 


10  PREFACE. 

Rudchenko  (I.).    Narodnuiya  Yuzhnorusskiya  Skazki  [South-Russian 
Popular  Tales].*     Kief,  1869. 

Most  of  the  other  works  referred  to  are  too  well  known 
to  require  a  full  setting   out   of  their  title.     But  it  is 
necessary  to  explain  that  references  to  Grimm  are  as 
a  general    rule   to   the  "  Kinder-und  Hausmarchen," 
9th  ed.     Berlin,  1870.    Those  to  Asbjornsen  and  Мое 
are    to  the    "  Norske  Folke-Eventyr,"   3d  ed.  Chris- 
tiania,  1 866 ;  those  to  Asbjornsen  only  are  to  the  "  New 
Series  "  of  those   tales,    Christiania,  1871  ;  those   to 
Dasent  are  to  the  "Popular  Tales  from  the  Norse," 
2d  ed.,   1859.     The  name  "  Karadjich  "  refers  to  the 
"  Srpske  Narodne  Pripovijetke,"  published  at  Vienna 
in  1853  by  Vuk  Stefanovich  Karajich,  and  translated 
by  his  daughter  under  the  title  of  "Volksmarcben  dei 
Serben,"  Berlin,  1854.     By  "Schott"    is    meant  the 
"  Walachische    Mahrchen,"  Stuttgart  und  Tubingen, 
1845,    by  "Schleicher"  the    "  Litauische   Marchen," 
Weimar,  1857,    by   "  Hahn "    the    "  Griechische  und 
albanesische  Marchen,"  Leipzig,  1864,  by  "  Haltrich  " 
the  "  Deutsche  Volksmarchen  aus  dem  Sachsenlande 
in  Siebenbiirgen,"  Berlin,    1856,  and  by  "  Campbell  " 
the  "  Popular  Tale  of  the  West  Highlands,"  4  vols., 
Edinburgh,  1860-62. 

A  few  of  the  ghost  stories  contained  in  the  following 
pages  appeared  in  the  "  Cornhill  Magazine  "  for  August 
1872,  and  an  account  of  some  of  the  "  legends  "  was 
given  in  the  "  Fortnightly  Review  "  for  April  1,  1868. 

*  There  is  one  other  recent  collection  of  skazkas— that  published  last  year  at 
Genera  under  the  title  of  "  Russkiya  Zavyetnuiya  Skazki-"  But  upon  its  contents  I 
have  not  found  it  necessary  to  draw. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

PAG*. 

The  Folk-tale  in  general,  and  the  Skazka  in  particular — Relation  of 
Russian  Popular  Tales  to  Russian  Eife — Stories  about  Court- 
ship, Death,  Burial  and  Wailings  for  the  Dead — Warnings 
against  Drink,  Jokes  about  Women,  Tales  of  Simpletons — A 
rhymed  Skazka  and  a  Legend       .  15 

CHAPTER  II. 

MYTHOLOGICAL. 

Principal  Incarnations  of  Evil. 
On  the  "  Mythical  Skazkas  " — Male  embodiments  of  Evil :  1. 
The  Snake  as  the  Stealer  of  Daylight;  2.  Norkathe  Beast,  Lord 
of  the  Lower  World ;  3.  Koshchei  the  Deathless,  The  Stealer  of 
Fair  Princesses — his  connexion  with  Punchkin  and  "  the  Giant 
who  had  no?Ieart  in  his  Body  " — Excursus  on  Bluebeard's  Cham- 
ber ;  4.  The  Water  King  or  Subaqueous  Demon — Female  Em- 
bodiments of  Evil :  1.  The  Baba  Yaga  or  Hag,  and  2.  The 
Witch,  feminine  counterparts  of  the  Snake  .     75 

CHAPTER  HI. 
MYTHOLOGICAL. 

Mis  с  ell  a  necus  Tinpersonifications . 
One-eyed  Likho,  a  story  of  the  Polyphemus  Cycle — Woe,  the  Poor 
Man's  Companion — Friday,  Wednesday,  and  Sunday  person- 
ified as  Female  Spirits — The  Leshy  or  Wood-Demon — Legends 
about  Rivers — Frost  as  a  Wooer  of  Maidens — The  Whirlwind 
personified  as  a  species  of  Snake  or  Demon — Morfei  and  Oh, 
two  supernatural  beings 186 


12  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT. 

PAGE, 
The  Waters  of  Life  and  Death,  and  of  Strength  and  Weakness — 
Aid  given  to  Children  by  Dead  Parents — Magic  Horses,  Fish, 
&c. — Stories  about  Brides  won  by  a  Leap,  &c. — Stories  about 
Wizards  and  Witches — The  Headless  Piincess — Midnight 
Watchings  over  Corpses — The  Fire  Bird,  its  connexion  with  the 
Golden  Bird  and  the  Phoenix 237 

CHAPTER  V. 

GHOST     STORIES. 

Slavonic  Ideas  about  the  Dead — On  Heaven  and  Hell — On  the 
Jack  and  the  Beanstalk  Story — Harmless  Ghosts — The  Rip  van 
Winkle  Story — the  attachment  #f  Ghosts  to  their  Shrouds  and 
Coffin-Lids — Murderous  Ghosts — Stories  about  Vampires — on 
the  name  Vampire,  and  the  belief  in  Vampirism         .         .         .  295 

CHAPTER  VI. 


I.  Saints,  dr\r. 

Legends  connected  with  the  Dog,  the  Izba,  the  Creation  of  Man, 
the  Rye,  the  Snake,  Ox,  Sole,  &c.  ;  with  Birds,  the  Peewit, 
Sparrow,  Swallow,  &c. — Legends  about  SS.  Nicholas,  Andrew, 
George,  Kasian,  &c 329 

2.  Demons,  &*c. 

Part  played  by  Demons  in  the  Skazkas — On  "  Hasty  Words," 
and  Parental  Curses;  their  power  to  subject  persons  to  demo- 
niacal possession — The  dulness  of  Demons ;  Stories  about 
Tricks  played  upon  them — Their  Gratitude  to  those  who  treat 
them  with  Kindness  and  their  General  Behavior — Various 
Legends  about  Devils — Moral  Tale  of  the  Gossip's  Bedstead  .     361 


STORY-LIST. 


PACE. 

I.  The  Fiend 24 

II,  The  Dead  Mother 32 

III.  The  Dead  Witch -  34 

IV.  The  Treasure      --.-...  36 
V.    The  Cross-Surety 40 

VI.    The  Awful  Drunkard 46 

VII.    The  Bad  Wife 52 

VIII.    The  Golovikha 55 

IX.    The  Three  Copecks 56 

X.    The  Miser 60 

XI.  The  Fool  and  the  Birch-Tree-  62 

XII.    The  Mizgir 68 

XIII.  The  Smith  and  the  Demon  70 

XIV.  Ivan  Popyalof 79 

XV.    TheNorka 86 

XVI.    Marya  Morevna 97 

XVII.    Koshchei  the  Deathless in 

XVIII.    The  Water  Snake 126 

XIX.  The  W.*ter  King  and  Vasilissa  the  Wise      -  130 

XX.    The  Baba  Yaga 148 

XXI.    Vasilissa  the  Fair 158 

XXII.    The  Witch 171 

XXIII.  The  Witch  and  the  Sun's  Sister     -       -       -  178 


14 


STORY-LIST. 


ГДСВ. 

XXIV. 

One-Eyed  Likho 

■     1S6 

XXV. 

Woe 

•    193 

XXVI. 

Friday 

•    207 

XXVII. 

Wednesday 

208 

XXVIII. 

The  Lsshy 

■    213 

XXIX. 

Vazuza  and  Volga 

•    215 

XXX. 

Sozh  and  Dnieper 

•    216 

XXXI 

The    Metamorphosis   of  the  Dnieper,   thi 

: 

Volga,  and  the  Dvina       ... 

■    217 

XXXII. 

Frost      ....              ... 

■    221 

XXXIIL 

The  Blind  Man  and  the  Cripple 

246 

XXXIV. 

Princess  Helena  the  Fair - 

•    262 

XXXV. 

Emilian  the  Fool 

■    269 

XXXVI. 

The  Witch  Girl 

274 

XXXVII. 

The  Headless  Princess      • 

276 

XXXVIII. 

The  Soldier's  Midnight  Watch 

279 

XXXIX. 

The  Warlock 

292 

XL. 

The  Fox-Physician 

■    296 

XLI. 

The  Fiddler  in  Hell 

■    303 

XLII. 

The  Ride  on  the  Gravestone  - 

308 

XLIII. 

The  Two  Friends 

3°9 

XLIV. 

The  Shroud 

3Si 

XLV. 

The  Coffin-Lid 

34 

XLVI. 

The  Two  Corpses 

316 

XLVII. 

The  Dog  and  the  Corpse           - 

316 

XLVIII. 

The  Soldier  and.  the  Vampire 

318 

XLIX. 

Elijah  the  Prophet  and  Nicholas   - 

344 

L. 

The  Priest  with  the  Greedy  Eyes  - 

■    355 

LI. 

The  Hasty  Word 

370 

RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

There  are  but  few  among  those  inhabitants  of  Fairyland 
of  whom  "  Popular  Tales  "  tell,  who  are  better  known  to  the 
outer  world  than  Cinderella — the  despised  and  flouted 
younger  sister,  who  long  sits  unnoticed  beside  the  hearth, 
then  furtively  visits  the  glittering  halls  of  the  great  and 
gay,  and  at  last  is  transferred  from  her  obscure  nook  to 
the  place  of  honor  justly  due  to  her  tardily  acknowledged 
merits.  Somewhat  like  the  fortunes  of  Cinderella  have 
been  those  of  the  popular  tale  itself.  Long  did  it  dwell 
beside  the  hearths  of  the  common  people,  utterly  ignored 
by  their  superiors  in  social  rank.  Then  came  a  period 
during  which  the  cultured  world  recognized  its  existence, 
but  accorded  to  it  no  higher  rank  than  that  allotted  to 
"  nursery  stories  "  and  "  old  wives'  tales  " — except,  indeed, 
on  those  rare  occasions  when  the  charity  of  a  condescend- 
ing scholar  had  invested  it  with  such  a  garb  as  was  sup- 
posed to  enable  it  to  make  a  respectable  appearance  in 
polite  society.  At  length  there  arrived  the  season  of  its 
final  change,  when,  transferred  from  the  dusk  of  the  peas- 
ant's hut  into  the  full  light  of  the  outer  day,  and  freed 
from  the  unbecoming  garments  by  which  it  had  been  dis- 

»5 


16  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

figured,  it  was  recognized  as  the  scion  of  a  family  so  truly 
royal  that  some  of  its  members  deduce  their  origin  from 
the  olden  gods  themselves. 

In  our  days  the  folk-tale,  instead  of  being  left  to  the 
careless  guardianship  of  youth  and  ignorance,  is  sedulously 
tended  and  held  in  high  honor  by  the  ripest  of  scholars. 
Their  views  with  regard  to  its  origin  may  differ  widely. 
But  whether  it  be  considered  in  one  of  its  phases  as  a 
distorted  "  nature-myth,"  or  in  another  as  a  demoralized 
apologue  or  parable — whether  it  be  regarded  at  one  time 
as  a  relic  of  primeval  wisdom,  or  at  another  as  a  blurred 
transcript  of  a  page  of  medieval  history — its  critics  agree 
in  declaring  it  to  be  no  mere  creation  of  the  popular  fancy, 
no  chance  expression  of  the  uncultured  thought  of  the 
rude  tiller  of  this  or  that  soil.  Rather  is  it  believed  of 
most  folk-tales  that  they,  in  their  original  forms,  were 
framed  centuries  upon  centuries  ago  ;  while  of  some  of 
them  it  is  supposed  that  they  may  be  traced  back  through 
successive  ages  to  those  myths  in  which,  during  a  prehis- 
toric period,  the  oldest  of  philosophers  expressed  their 
ideas  relative  to  the  material  or  the  spiritual  world. 

But  it  is  not  every  popular  tale  which  can  boast  of  so 
noble  a  lineage,  and  one  of  the  great  difficulties  which 
beset  the  mythologist  who  attempts  to  discover  the  original 
meaning  of  folk-tales  in  general  is  to  decide  which  of  them 
are  really  antique,  and  worthy,  therefore,  of  being  sub- 
mitted to  critical  analysis.  Nor  is  it  less  difficult,  when 
dealing  with  the  stories  of  any  one  country  in  particular, 
to  settle  which  may  be  looked  upon  as  its  own  property, 
and  which  ought  to  be  considered  as  borrowed  and  adapted. 
Everyone  knows  that  the  existence  of  the  greater  part  of 
the  stories  current  among  the  various  European  peoples  is 
accounted  for  on  two  different  hypotheses — the  one  sup- 


INTRO  D  UCTOR  V.  17 

posing  that  most  of  them  "  were  common  in  germ  at  least 
to  the  Aryan  tribes  before  their  migration,"  and  that, 
therefore,  "  these  traditions  are  as  much  a  portion  of  the 
common  inheritance  of  our  ancestors  as  their  language 
unquestionably  is  :  "  *  the  other  regarding  at  least  a  great 
part  of  them  as  foreign  importations,  Oriental  fancies 
which  were  originally  introduced  into  Europe,  through  a 
series  of  translations,  by  the  pilgrims  and  merchants  who 
were  always  linking  the  East  and  the  West  together,  or  by 
the  emissaries  of  some  of  the  heretical  sects,  or  in  the 
train  o(  such  warlike  transferrers  as  the  Crusaders,  or  the 
Arabs  who  ruled  in  Spain,  or  the  Tartars  who  so  long  held 
the  Russia  of  old  times  in  their  grasp.  According  to  the 
former  supposition,  "  these  very  stories,  these  Afahrchen, 
which  nurses  still  tell,  with  almost  the  same  words,  in  the 
Thuringian  forest  and  in  the  Norwegian  villages,  and  to 
which  crowds  of  children  listen  under  the  pippal  trees  of 
India,"  t  belong  "  to  the  common  heirloom  of  the  Indo- 
European  race  ;  "  according  to  the  latter,  the  majority  of 
European  popular  tales  are  merely  naturalized  aliens  in 
Europe,  being  as  little  the  inheritance  of  its  present  in- 
habitants as  were  the  stories  and  fables  which,  by  a.  cir- 
cuitous route,  were  transmitted  from  India  to  Boccaccio 
or  La  Fontaine. 

On  the  questions  to  which  these  two  conflicting  hypo- 
theses give  rise  we  will  not  now  dwell.  For  the  present,  we 
will  deal  with  the  Russian  folk-tale  as  we  find  it,  attempt- 
ing to  become  acquainted  with  its  principal  characteristics 
to  see  in  what  respects  it  chiefly  differs  from  the  stories  of 
the  same  class  which  are  current  among  ourselves,  or  in 
those  foreign  lands  with  which  we  are  more  familiar  than 

*  Dasent's  "Popular  Tales  from  the  Norse,"  p.  xL 
t  Max  Muller,  "  Chips,"  vol.  ii.  p.  226. 
2 


18  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

we  are  with  Russia,  rather  than  to  explore  its  birthplace 
or  to  divine  its  original  meaning. 

We  often  hear  it  said,  that  from  the  songs  and  stories 
of  a  country  we  may  learn  much  about  the  inner  life  of  its 
people,  inasmuch  as  popular  utterances  of  this  kind  always 
bear  the  stamp  of  the  national  character,  offer  a  reflex  of 
the  national  mind.  So  far  as  folk-songs  are  concerned, 
this  statement  appears  to  be  well  founded,  but  it  can  be 
applied  to  the  folk-tales  of  Europe  only  within  very  narrow 
limits.  Each  country  possesses  certain  stories  which  have 
special  reference  to  its  own  manners  and  customs,  and  by 
coMecting  such  tales  as  these,  something  approximating  to 
a  picture  of  its  national  life  may  be  laboriously  pieced 
together.  But  the  stories  of  this  class  are  often  nothing 
more  than  comparatively  modern  adaptations  of  old  and 
foreign  themes  ;  nor  are  they  sufficiently  numerous,  so  far 
as  we  can  judge  from  existing  collections,  to  render  by 
any  means  complete  the  national  portrait  for  which  they 
are  expected  to  supply  the  materials.  In  order  to  fill  up  the 
gaps  they  leave,  it  is  necessary  to  bring  together  a  number 
of  fragments  taken  from  stories  which  evidently  refer  to 
another  clime — fragments  which  may  be  looked  upon  as 
excrescences  or  developments  due  to  the  novel  influences 
to  which  the  foreign  slip,  or  seedling,  or  even  full-grown 
plant,  has  been  subjected  since  its  transportation. 

The  great  bulk  of  the  Russian  folk-tales,  and,  indeed, 
of  those  of  all  the  Indo-European  nations,  is  devoted  to 
the  adventures  of  such  fairy  princes  and  princesses,  such 
snakes  and  giants  and  demons,  as  are  quite  out  of  keeping 
with  ordinary  men  and  women — at  all  events  with  the  in- 
habitants of  modern  Europe  since  the  termination  of  those 
internecine  struggles  between  aboriginals  and  ir.vaders, 
rvhich  some  commentators  see  typified    in  the   combats 


INTRODUCTORY.  19 

between  the  heroes  of  our  popular  tales  and  the  whole 
race  of  giants,  trolls,  ogres,  snakes,  dragons,  and  other 
monsters.  The  air  wq  breathe  in  them  is  that  of  Fairy- 
land ;  the  conditions  of  existence,  the  relations  between 
the  human  race  and  the  spiritual  world  on  the  one  hand, 
the  material  world  on  the  other,  are  totally  inconsistent 
with  those  to  which  we  are  now  restricted.  There  is 
boundless  freedom  of  intercourse  between  mortals  and 
immortals,  between  mankind  and  the  brute  creation,  and, 
although  there  are  certain  conventional  rules  which  must 
always  be  observed,  they  are  not  those  which  are  enforced 
by  any  people  known  to  anthropologists.  The  stories 
which  are  common  to  all  Europe  differ,  no  doubt,  in  differ- 
ent countries,  but  their  variations,  so  far  as  their  matter  is 
concerned,  seem  to  be  due  less  to  the  moral  character  than 
to  the  geographical  distribution  of  their  reciters.  The 
manner  in  which  these  tales  are  told,  however,  may  often 
be  taken  as  a  test  of  the  intellectual  capacity  of  their 
tellers.  For  in  style  the  folk-tale  changes  greatly  as  it 
travels.  A  story  which  we  find  narrated  in  one  country 
with  terseness  and  precision  may  be  rendered  almost  unin- 
telligible in  another  by  vagueness  or  verbiage  ;  by  one 
race  it  may  be  elevated  into  poetic  life,  by  another  it  may 
be  degraded  into  the  most  prosaic  dulness. 

Now,  so  far  as  style  is  concerned,  the  Skazkas  or  Russian 
folk-tales,  may  justly  be  said  to  be  characteristic  of  the 
Russian  people.  There  are  numerous  points  on  which  the 
"  lower  classes  "  of  all  the  Aryan  peoples  in  Europe  closely 
resemble  each  other,  but  the  Russian  peasant  has — in 
common  with  all  his  Slavonic  brethren — a  genuine  talent 
for  narrative  which  distinguishes  him  from  some  of  his  more 
distant  cousins.  And  the  stories  which  are  current  among 
the  Russian  peasantry  are  for  the  most  part  exceedingly 


20  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

well  narrated.  Their  language  is  simple  and  pleasantly 
quaint,  their  humor  is  natural  and  unobtrusive,  and  their 
descriptions,  whether  of  persons  or  of  events,  are  often 
excellent.*  A  taste  for  acting  is  widely  spread  in  Russia, 
and  the  Russian  folk-tales  are  full  of  dramatic  positions 
which  offer  a  wide  scope  for  a  display  of  their  reciter's 
mimetic  talents.  Every  here  and  there,  indeed,  a  tag  of 
genuine  comedy  has  evidently  been  attached  by  the  story- 
«.eller  to  a  narrative  which  in  its  original  form  was  probably 
devoid  of  the  comic  element. 

And  thus  from  the  Russian  tales  may  be  derived  some 
idea  of  the  mental  characteristics  of  the  Russian  peasantry 
— one  which  is  very  incomplete,  but,  within  its  narrow 
limits,  sufficiently  accurate.  And  a  similar  statement  may 
be  made  with  respect  to  the  pictures  of  Russian  peasant  life 
contained  in  these  tales.  So  far  as  they  go  they  are  true  to 
nature,  and  the  notion  which  they  convey  to  a  stranger  of 
the  manners  and  customs  of  Russian  villagers  is  not  likely 
to  prove  erroneous,  but  they  do  not  go  very  far.  On  some 
of  the  questions  which  are  likely  to  be  of  the  greatest  in- 
terest to  a  foreigner  they  never  touch.  There  is  very  little 
information  to  be  gleaned  from  them,  for  instance,  with  re- 
gard to  the  religious  views  of  the  people,  none  with  respect 
to  the  relations  which,  during  the  times  of  serfdom,  existed 
between  the  lord  and  the  thrall.  But  from  the  casual 
references  to  actual  scenes  and  ordinary  occupations  which 
every  here  and  there  occur  in  the  descriptions  of  fairyland 
and  the  narratives  of  heroic  adventure — from  the  realistic 
vignettes  which  are  sometimes  inserted  between  the  ideal- 
ized portraits  of  invincible  princes  and  irresistible  prin- 

*  Take  as  an  illustration  of  these  remarks  the  close  of  the  story  of  "  Helen  the 
Fair  "  (No.  34,  Chap.  IV.).  See  how  light  and  bright  it  is  (or  at  least  was,  before  h 
was  translated). 


INTRODUCTORY.  21 

cesses — some  idea  may  be  obtained  of  the  usual  aspect  of 
a  Russian  village,  and  of  the  ordinary  behavior  of  its  in- 
habitants. Turning  from  one  to  another  of  these  acciden- 
tal illustrations,  we  by  degrees  create  a  mental  picture 
which  is  not  without  its  peculiar  charm.  We  see  the  wide 
sweep  of  the  level  corn-land,  the  gloom  of  the  intermina- 
ble forest,  the  gleam  of  the  slowly  winding  river.  We  pass 
along  the  single  street  of  the  village,  and  glance  at  its 
wooden  barn-like  huts,*  so  different  from  the  ideal  English 
cottage  with  its  windows  set  deep  in  ivy  and  its  porch  smil- 
ing with  roses.  We  see  the  land  around  a  Slough  of  De- 
spond in  the  spring,  an  unbroken  sea  of  green  in  the  early 
summer,  a  blaze  of  gold  at  harvest-time,  in  the  winter  one 
vast  sheet  of  all  but  untrodden  snow.  On  Sundays  and 
holidays  we  accompany  the  villagers  to  their  white-walled, 
green-domed  church,  and  afterwards  listen  to  the  songs 
which  the  girls  sing  in  the  summer  choral  dances,  or  take 
part  in  the  merriment  of  the  social  gatherings,  which  enliven 
the  long  nights  of  winter.  Sometimes  the  quaint  lyric 
drama  of  a  peasant  wedding  is  performed  before  our  eyes, 
sometimes  we  follow  a  funeral  party  to  one  of  those  dismal 
and  desolate  nooks  in  which  the  Russian  villagers  deposit 
their  dead.  On  working  days  we  see  the  peasants  driving 
afield  in  the  early  morn  with  their  long  lines  of  carts,  to 
till  the  soil,  or  ply  the  scythe  or  sickle  or  axe,  till  the  day 
is  done  and  their  rude  carts  come  creaking  back.  We 
hear  the  songs  and  laughter  of  the  girls  beside  the  stream 
or  pool  which  ripples  pleasantly  against  its  banks  in  the 
summer  time,  but  in  the  winter  shows  no  sign  of  life,  except 
at  the  spot,  much  frequented  by  the  wives  and  daughters 
of  the  village,  where  an  "  ice-hole  "  has  been  cut  in  its 

*  I  speak  only  of  what  I   have  seen.     In   some   districts  of  Russia,  if  one  maj 
judge  from  pictures,  the  peasants  occupy  ornamented  and  ornamental  dwellings. 


22  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

massive  pad.  And  at  night  we  see  the  homely  dwellings 
of  the  villagers  assume  a  picturesque  aspect  to  which  they 
are  strangers  by  the  tell-tale  light  of  day,  their  rough  lines 
softened  by  the  mellow  splendor  of  a  summer  moon,  or 
their  unshapely  forms  looming  forth  mysteriously  against 
the  starlit  snow  of  winter.  Above  all  we  become  familiar 
with  those  cottage  interiors  to  which  the  stories  contain  so 
many  references.  Sometimes  we  see  the  better  class  of 
homestead,  surrounded  by  its  fence  through  which  we  pass 
between  the  often-mentioned  gates.  After  a  glance  at  the 
barns  and  cattle-sheds,  and  at  the  garden  which  supplies 
the  family  with  fruits  and  vegetables  (on  flowers,  alas  !  but 
little  store  is  set  in  the  northern  provinces),  we  cross  the 
threshold,  a  spot  hallowed  by  many  traditions,  and  pass, 
through  what  in  more  pretentious  houses  may  be  called  the 
vestibule,  into  the  "  living  room."  We  become  well  acquaint- 
ed with  its  arrangements,  with  the  cellar  beneath  its  wood- 
en floor,  with  the  "  corner  of  honor  "  in  which  are  placed 
the  "  holy  pictures,"  and  with  the  stove  which  occupies  so 
large  a  share  of  space,  within  which  daily  beats,  as  it  were 
the  heart  of  the  house,  above  which  is  nightly  taken  the  re- 
pose of  the  family.  Sometimes  we  visit  the  hut  of  the 
poverty-stricken  peasant,  more  like  a  shed  for  cattle  than  a 
human  habitation,  with  a  mud-floor  and  a  tattered  roof, 
through  which  the  smoke  makes  its  devious  way.  In  these 
poorer  dwellings  we  witness  much  suffering ;  but  we  learn 
to  respect  the  patience  and  resignation  with  which  it  is 
generally  borne,  and  in  the  greater  part  of  the  humble 
homes  we  visit  we  become  aware  of  the  existence  of  many 
domestic  virtues,  we  see  numerous  tokens  of  family  affec- 
tion, of  filial  reverence,  of  parental  love.  And  when,  as  we 
pass  along  the  village  street  at  night,  we  see  gleaming 
through  the  utter  darkness  the  faint  rays  which  tell  that 


INT  ROD  UCTOR  Y.  S& 

even  in  many  a  poverty-stricken  home  a  lamp  is  burning 
before  the  "holy  pictures,"  we  feel  that  these  poor  tillers  of 
the  soil,  ignorant  and  uncouth  though  they  too  often  arej 
may  be  raised  at  times  by  lofty  thoughts  and  noble  aspira- 
tions far  above  the  low  level  of  the  dull  and  hard  lives 
which  they  are  forced  to  lead. 

From  among  the  stories  which  contain  the  most  graphic 
descriptions  of  Russian  village  life,  or  which  maybe  regard- 
ed as  specially  illustrative  of  Russian  sentiment  and  humoi 
those  which  the  present  chapter  contains  have  been  select- 
ed. Any  information  they  may  convey  will  necessarily  be 
of  a  most  fragmentary  nature,  but  for  all  that  it  may  be 
capable  of  producing  a  correct  impression.  A  painter's 
rough  notes  and  jottings  are  often  more  true  to  nature  than 
the  most  finished  picture  into  which  they  may  be  devel- 
oped. 

The  word  skazka,  or  folk-tale,  does  not  very  often  occur 
in  the  Russian  popular  tales  themselves.  Still  there  are 
occasions  on  which  it  appears.  The  allusions  to  it  are  for 
the  most  part  indirect,  as  when  a  princess  is  said  to  be  more 
beautiful  than  anybody  ever  was,  except  in  a  skazka  ;  but 
sometimes  it  obtains  direct  notice.  In  a  story,  for  instance, 
of  a  boy  who  had  been  carried  off  by  a  Baba  Yaga  (a 
species  of  witch),  we  are  told  that  when  his  sister  came  to 
his  rescue  she  found  him  "  sitting  in  an  arm-chair,  while  the 
cat  Jeremiah  told  him  skazkas  and  sang  him  songs."  *  In 
another  story,  a  Durak, — a  "  ninny  "  or  "  gowk  " — is  sent  to 
take  care  of  the  children  of  a  village  during  the  absence  of 
their  parents.  "  Go  and  get  all  the  children  together  in  one 
of  the  cottages  and  tell  them  skazkas,"  are  his  instructions. 
He  collects  the  children,  but  as  they  are  "  all  ever  so  dirty ' 

*  Khudyakof,  vol.  ii.  p.  65. 


24  /?l/SS/AAT  FOLK-TALES. 

he  puts  them  into  boiling  water  by  way  of  cleansing  them, 
and  so  washes  them  to  death.* 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  social  life  »n  the  Russian  vil- 
lages during  the  long  winter  evenings,  and  at  some  of  the 
gatherings  which  then  take  place  skazkas  are  told,  though 
at  those  in  which  only  the  young  people  participate,  songs» 
games,  and  dances  are  more  popular.  The  following  skazka 
has  been  selected  on  account  of  the  descriptions  of  a 
vechemitsa,  or  village  soiree,^  and  of  a  rustic  courtship, 
which  its  opening  scene  contains.  The  rest  of  the  story  is 
not  remarkable  for  its  fidelity  to  modern  life,  but  it  will 
serve  as  a  good  illustration  of  the  class  to  which  it  belongs 
— that  of  stories  about  evil  spirits,  traceable,  for  the  most 
part,  to  Eastern  sources. 

The  Fiend  4 

In  a  certain  country  there  lived  an  old  couple  who  had  a  daugh- 
ter called  Marusia  (Mary).  In  their  village  it  was  customary  to 
celebrate  the  feast  of  St.  Andrew  the  First-Called  (November 
30).  The  girls  used  to  assemble  in  some  cottage,  bake  pampush- 
ki,%  and  enjoy  themselves  for  a  whole  week,  or  even  longer. 
Well,  the  girls  met  together  once  when  this  festival  arrived,  and 
brewed  and  baked  what  was  wanted.  In  the  evening  came  the 
lads  with  the  music,  bringing  liquor  with  them,  and  dancing  and 
revelry  commenced.  All  the  girls  danced  well,  but  Marusia  the 
best  of  all.  After  a  while  there  came  into  the  cottage  such  a 
fine  fellow  !  Marry,  come  up  !  regular  blood  and  milk,  and 
smartly  and  richly  dressed. 

"  Hail,  fair  maidens  !  "  says  he. 

"  Hail,  good  youth  !  "  say  they. 

*  Khudyakof,  vol.  ii.  p.  115. 

t  For  a  description   of  such   social  gatherings  see  the  "  Songs  of  the    Russian 
People,"  pp.  32-38. 

%  Afanasief,  vi.  No.  66. 

§  Cakes  of  unleavened  flour  flavored  with  garlic. 


INTRODUCTORY.  25 

"  You're  merry-making  ?  " 

"  Be  so  good  as  to  join  us." 

Thereupon  he  pulled  out  of  his  pocket  a  purse  full  of  gold, 
ordered  liquor,  nuts  and  gingerbread.  All  was  ready  in  a  trice, 
and  he  began  treating  the  lads  and  lasses,  giving  each  a  share. 
Then  he  took  to  dancing.  Why,  it  was  a  treat  to  look  at  him  ! 
Marusia  struck  his  fancy  more  than  anyone  else ;  so  he  stuck 
close  to  her.     The  time  came  for  going  home. 

"  Marusia,"  says  he,  "  come  and  see  me  off. ' 

She  went  to  see  him  off. 

"  Marusia,  sweetheart ! "  says  he,  "  would  you  like  me  to 
marry  you  ?  " 

"  If  you  like  to  marry  me,  I  will  gladly  marry  you.  But 
where  do  you  come  from  ?  " 

"  From  such  and  such  a  place.     I'm  clerk  at  a  merchant's." 

Then  they  bade  each  other  farewell  and  separated.  When 
Marusia  got  home,  her  mother  asked  her  : 

"  Well,  daughter  !  have  you  enjoyed  yourself  ?  " 

"  Yes,  mother.  But  I've  something  pleasant  to  tell  you  be- 
sides. There  was  a  lad  there  from  the  neighborhood,  good- 
looking  and  with  lots  of  money,  and  he  promised  to  marry  me." 

"  Harkye  Marusia  !  When  you  go  to  where  the  girls  are  to- 
morrow, take  a  ball  of  thread  with  you,  make  a  nuose  in  it,  and, 
when  you  are  going  to  see  him  off,  throw  it  over  one  of  his  but- 
tons, and  quietly  unroll  the  ball  ;  then,  by  means  of  the  thread 
you  will  be  able  to  find  out  where  he  lives." 

Next  day  Marusia  went  to  the  gathering,  and  took  a  ball  of 
thread  with  her.     The  youth  came  again. 

"  Good  evening,  Marusia  ! "  said  he. 

"  Good  evening !  "  said  she. 

Games  began  and  dances.  Even  more  than  before  did  he 
stick  to  Marusia,  not  a  step  would  he  budge  from  her.  The  time 
came  for  going  home. 

"  Come  and  see  me  off,  Marusia  ! "  says  the  stranger. 

She  went  out  into  the  street,  and  while  she  was  taking  leave 
of  him  she  quietly  dropped  the  noose  over  one  of  his  buttons. 
He  went  his  way,  but  she  remained  where  she  was,  unrolling  the 


26  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

ball.  When  she  had  unrolled  the  whole  of  it,  she  ran  after  the 
thread  to  find  out  where  her  betrothed  lived.  At  first  the  thread 
followed  the  road,  then  it  stretched  across  hedges  and  ditches, 
and  Jed  Marusia  towards  the  church  and  right  up  to  the  porch. 
Marusia  tried  the  door ;  it  was  locked.  She  went  round  the 
church,  found  a  ladder,  set  it  against  a  window,  and  climbed  up 
it  to  see  what  was  going  on  inside.  Having  got  into  the  church, 
she  looked — and  saw  her  betrothed  standing  beside  a  grave  and 
devouring  a  dead  body — for  a  corpse  had  been  left  for  that 
night  in  the  church. 

She  wanted  to  get  down  the  ladder  quietly,  but  her  fright  pre- 
vented her  from  taking  proper  heed,  and  she  made  a  little  noise. 
Then  she  ran  home — almost  beside  herself,  fancying  all  the 
time  she  was  being  pursued.  She  was  all  but  dead  before  she 
got  in.     Next  morning  her  mother  asked  her : 

"  Well,  Marusia  !  did  you  see  the  youth  ?  " 

"  I  saw  him,  mother,"  she  replied.  But  what  else  she  had 
seen  she  did  not  tell. 

In  the  morning  Marusia  was  sitting,  considering  whether  she 
would  go  to  the  gathering  or  not. 

"Go,"  said  her  mother.  "Amuse  yourself  while  you're 
young !  " 

So  she  went  to  the  gathering;  the  Fiend  *  was  there  already. 
Games,  fun,  dancing,  began  anew ;  the  girls  knew  nothing  of 
what  had  happened.  When  they  began  to  separate  and  go 
homewards  : 

"Come,  Marusia!"  says  the  Evil  One,  "see  me  off." 

She  was  afraid,  and  didn't  stir.  Then  all  the  other  girls 
opened  out  upon  her. 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about  ?  Have  you  grown  so  bashful, 
forsooth  ?     Go  and  see  the  good  lad  off." 

There  was  no  help  for  it.  Out  she  went,  not  knowing  what 
would  come  of  it.  As  soon  as  they  got  into  the  streets  he  began 
questioning  her : 

"  You  were  in  the  church  last  night  ?  " 

•The  Ncchistol,  or  unclean.     (Chisty  =  clean,  pure,  &c.) 


IXTRODUCTOR ) r.  1Й 

-No.' 

"  And  saw  what  I  was  doing  there  ? " 

"  No." 

"  Very  well !     To-morrow  your  father  will  die  ! ' 

Having  said  this,  he  disappeared. 

Marusia  returned  home  grave  and  sad.  When  she  woke  up 
in  the  morning,  her  father  lay  dead  ! 

They  wept  and  wailed  over  him,  and  laid  him  in  the  coffin. 
In  the  evening  her  mother  went  off  to  the  priest's,  but  Marusia 
remained  at  home  At  last  she  became  afraid  of  being  alone  in 
the  house.  "  Suppose  I  go  to  my  friends,"  she  thought.  So 
she  went,  and  found  the  Evil  One  there. 

"  Good  evening,  Marusia  !  why  arn't  you  merry  ?  " 

"  How  can  I  be  merry  ?     My  father  is  dead  !  " 

"  Oh  !  poor  thing  !  " 

They  all  grieved  for  her.  Even  the  Accursed  One  himself 
grieved  ;  just  as  if  it  hadn't  all  been  his  own  doing.  By  and  by 
they  began  saying  farewell  and  going  home. 

"Marusia,"  says  he,  "see  me  off." 

She  didn't  want  to. 

4'  What  are  you  thinking  of,  child  ?  "  insist  the  girls.  "  What 
are  you  afraid  of  ?     Go  and  see  him  off." 

So  she  went  to  see  him  off.     They  passed  out  into  the  street. 

"  Tell  me,  Marusia,"  says  he,  "  were  you  in  the  church  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Did  you  see  what  I  was  doing  ?  " 

"No." 

"Very  well !  To-morrow  your  mother  will  die." 

He  spoke  and  disappeared.  Marusia  returned  home  sadder 
than  ever.  The  night  went  by;  next  morning,  when  she  awoke, 
her  mother  lay  dead  !  She  cried  all  day  long ;  but  when  the 
sun  set,  and  it  grew  dark  around,  Marusia  became  afraid  of 
being  left  alone ;  so  she  went  to  her  companions. 

"  Why,  whatever's  the  matter  with  you  ?  you're  clean  cut  of 
countenance  !  "*   say  the  girls. 

•  Literally,  "  on  thee  no  face  is  to  be  seen." 


28-  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  How  am  I  likely  to  be  cheerful  ?  Yesterday  my  father 
died,  and  to-day  my  mother." 

"Poor  thing!  Poor  unhappy  girl !"  they  all  exclaim  sym- 
pathizingly. 

Well,  the  time  came  to  say  good-bye.  "  See  me  off,  Marusia," 
says  the  Fiend.     So  she  went  out  to  see  him  off 

"  Tell  me ;  were  you  in  the  church  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  And  saw  what  I  was  doing  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Very  well !  To-morrow  even.ng  you  will  die  yourself  !  " 

Marusia  spent  the  night  with  her  friends ;  in  the  morning 
she  got  up  and  considered  what  she  should  do.  She  bethought 
herself  that  she  had  a  grandmother — an  old,  very  old  woman, 
who  had  become  blind  from  length  of  years.  "  Suppose  I  go 
and  ask  her  advice,"  she  said,  and  then  went  off  to  her  grand- 
mother's. 

"  Good-day,  granny !  "  says  she. 

"  Good-day,  granddaughter  !  What  news  is  there  with  you  ? 
How  are  your  father  and  mother  ?  " 

"  They  are  dead,  granny,"  replied  the  girl,  and  then  told 
her  all  that  had  happened. 

The  old  woman  listened,  and  said  : — 

"  Oh  dear  me  !  my  poor  unhappy  child  !  Go  quickly  to  the 
priest,  and  ask  him  this  favor — that  if  you  die,  your  body  shall 
not  be  taken  out  of  the  house  through  the  doorway,  but  that  the 
ground  shall  be  dug  away  from  under  the  threshold,  and  that 
you  shall  be  dragged  out  through  that  opening.  And  also  beg 
that  you  may  be  buried  at  a  crossway,  at  a  spot  where  four 
roads  meet." 

Marusia  went  to  the  priest,  wept  bitterly,  and  made  him  prom- 
ise to  do  everything  according  to  her  grandmother's  instruc- 
tions. Then  she  returned  home,  bought  a  coffin,  lay  down  in  it, 
and  straightway  expired. 

Well,  they  told  the  priest,  and  he  buried,  first  her  father  and 


IN  TROD  UCTOR  Y.  29 

mother,  and  then  Marusia  herself.     Her  body  was  passed  under 
neath  the  threshold  and  buried  at  a  crossway. 

Soon  afterwards  a  seigneur's  son  happened  to  drive  past 
Marusia's  grave.  On  that  grave  he  saw  growing  a  wondrous 
flower,  such  a  one  as  he  had  never  seen. before.  Said  the 
young  seigneur  to  his  servant : — 

"Go  and  pluck  up  that  flower  L у  the  roots.  We'll  take 
it  home  and  put  it  in  a  flower-pot.  Perhaps  it  will  blossom 
there." 

Well,  they  dug  up  the  flower,  took  it  home,  put  it  in  a  glazed 
flower-pot,  and  set  it  in  a  window.  The  flower  began  to  grow 
larger  and  more  beautiful.  One  night  the  servant  hadn't  gone 
to  sleep  somehow,  and  he  happened  to  be  looking  at  the  window, 
when  he  saw  a  wondrous  thing  take  place.  All  of  a  sudden  the 
flower  began  to  tremble,  then  it  fell  from  its  stem  to  the  ground, 
and  turned  into  a  lovely  maiden.  The  flower  was  beautiful,  but 
the  maiden  was  more  beautiful  still.  She  wandered  from  room 
to  room,  got  herself  various  things  to  eat  and  drink,  ate  and 
drank,  then  stamped  upon  the  ground  and  became  a  flower 
as  before,  mounted  to  the  window,  and  resumed  her  place  upon 
the  stem.  Next  day  the  servant  told  the  young  seigneur  of  the 
wonders  which  he  had  seen  during  the  night. 

"  Ah,  brother !  "  said  the  youth,  "  why  didn't  you  wake  me  ? 
To-night  we'll  both  keep  watch  together." 

The  night  came  ;  they  slept  not,  but  watched.  Exactly  at 
twelve  o'clock  the  blossom  began  to  shake,  flew  from  place  to 
place,  and  then  fell  to  the  ground,  and  the  beautiful  maiden 
appeared,  got  herself  things  to  eat  and  drink,  and  sat  down  to 
supper.  The  young  seigneur  rushed  forward  and  seized  her  by 
her  white  hands.  Impossible  was  it  for  him  sufficiently  to  look 
at  her,  to  gaze  on  her  beauty  ! 

Next  morning  he  said  to  his  father  and  mother,  "  Please 
allow  me  to  get  married.     I've  found  myself  a  bride." 

His  parents  gave  their  consent.     As  for  Marusia,  she  said  : 

"Only  on  this  condition  will  I  marry  you — that  for  four  years 
I  need  not  go  to  church." 


30  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  Very  good,"  said  he. 

Well,  they  were  married,  and  they  lived  together  one  year, 
two  years,  and  had  a  son.  But  one  day  they  had  visitors  at 
their  house,  who  enjoyed  themselves,  and  drank,  and  began 
bragging  about  their  wives.  This  one's  wife  was  handsome  ; 
that  one's  was  handsomer  still. 

"  You  may  say  what  you  like,"  says  the  host,  "  but  a  hand- 
somer wife  than  mine  does  not  exist  in  the  whole  world  !  " 

"  Handsome,  yes  !  "  reply  the  guests,  "  but  a  heathen.' 

"How  so?  " 

"  Why,  she  never  goes  to  church." 

Her  husband  found  these  observations  distasteful.  He 
waited  till  Sunday,  and  then  told  his  wife  to  get  dressed  for 
church. 

"  I  don't  care  what  you  may  say,"  says  he.  "  Go  and  get 
ready  directly." 

Well,  they  got  ready,  and  went  to  church.  The  husband 
went  in — didn't  see  anything  particular.  But  when  she  looked 
round — there  was  the  Fiend  sitting  at  a  window. 

"  Ha !  here  you  are,  at  last !  "  he  cried.  "  Remember  old 
times.     Were  you  in  the  church  that  night  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  And  did  you  see  what  I  was  doing  there  ?  " 

"No." 

"  Very  well !  To-morrow  both  your  husband  and  your  son  will 
die." 

Marusia  rushed  straight  out  of  the  church  and  away  to  her 
grandmother.  The  old  woman  gave  her  two  phials,  the  one  full 
of  holy  water,  the  other  of  the  water  of  life,  and  told  her  what 
she  was  to  do.  Next  day  both  Marusia's  husband  and  her  son 
died.     Then  the  Fiend  came  flying  to  her  and  asked  : — 

"  Tell  me ;  were  you  in  the  church  ?  " 

"  I  was." 

"  And  did  you  see  what  I  was  doing  ?  " 

"  You  were  eating  a  corpse." 

She  spoke,  and  splashed  the  holy  water  over  him  ;  in  a  mo 


INTRODUCTORY.  31 

msnt  he  turned  into  mere  dust  and  ashes,  which  blew  to  the 
winds.  Afterwards  she  sprinkled  her  husband  and  her  boy  with 
the  water  of  life  :  straightway  they  revived.  And  from  that 
lime  forward  they  knew  neither  sorrow  nor  separation,  but  they 
all  lived  together  long  and  happily.* 

Another  lively  sketch  of  a  peasant's  love-making  is 
given  in  the  introduction  to  the  story  of  "  Ivan  the  widow's 
son  and  Grisha."  f  The  tale  is  one  of  magic  and  enchant- 
ment, of  living  clouds  and  seven-headed  snakes  ;  but  the 
opening  is  a  little  piece  of  still-life  very  quaintly  portrayed. 
A  certain  villager,  named  Trofim,  having  been  unable  to 
find  a  wife,  his  Aunt  Melania  comes  to  his  aid,  promising 
to  procure  him  an  interview  with  a  widow  who  has  been 
left  well  provided  for,  and  whose  personal  appearance  is 
attractive — "  real  blood  and  milk  !  When  she's  got  on  her 
holiday  clothes,  she's  as  fine  as  a  peacock ! "  Trofim 
grovels  with  gratitude  at  his  aunt's  feet.  "  My  own  dear 
auntie,  Melania  Prokhorovna,  get  me  married  for  heaven's 
sake  !  I'll  buy  you  an  embroidered  kerchief  in  return,  the 
very  best  in  the  whole  market."  The  widow  comes  to  pay 
Melania  a  visit,  and  is  induced  to  believe,  on  the  evidence 
of  beans  (frequently  used  for  the  purpose  of  divination), 
that  her  destined  husband  is  close  at  hand.     At  this  propi- 


*  I  do  not  propose  to  comment  at  any  length  upon  the  stories  quoted  in  the  present 
chapter.  Some  of  them  will  be  referred  to  farther  on.  Marusia's  demon  lover  will  be 
recognized  as  akin  to  Arabian  Ghouls,  or  the  Rakshasas  of  Indian  mythology.  (See 
the  story  of  Sidi  Norman  in  the  "  Thousand  and  One  Nights,"  also  Lane's  transla- 
tion, vol.  i.,  p.  32  ;  and  the  story  of  Asokadatta  and  Vijayadatta  in  the  fifth  book  of 
the  "  Kathasaritsagara,"  Brockhaus's  translation,  1843,  vol.  ii.  pp.  142-159.)  Fc.t 
transformations  of  a  maiden  into  a  flower  or  tree,  see  Grimm,  No.  76,  "  Die  Nelke," 
and  the  notes  to  that  story  in  vol.  iii.,  p.  125 — Hahn,  No.  21,  "  Das  Lorbeerkind," 
etc.  "The  Water  of  Life,"  will  meet  with  due  consideration  in  the  fourth  chapter. 
The  Holy  Water  which  destroys  the  Fiend  is  merely  a  Christian  form  of  the  "  Watei 
of  Death,"  viewed  in  its  negative  aspect. 
t  Chudinsky,  No.  3. 


3.2  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

tious  moment  Trofim  appears.  Melania  makes  a  little 
speech  to  the  young  couple,  ending  her  recommendation 
to  get  married  with  the  words  : — 

"  I  can  see  well  enough  by  the  bridegroom's  eyes  that 
the  bride  is  to  his  taste,  only  I  don't  know  what  the  bride 
thinks  about  taking  him." 

"  I  don't  mind  !  "  says  the  widow.  "  Well,  then,  glory 
be  to  God  !  Now,  stand  up,  we'll  say  a  prayer  before  the 
Holy  Pictures ;  then  give  each  other  a  kiss,  and  go  in 
Heaven's  name  and  get  married  at  once  !  "  And  so  the 
question  is  settled. 

From  a  courtship  and  a  marriage  in  peasant  life  we 
may  turn  to  a  death  and  a  burial.  There  are  frequent 
allusions  in  the  Skazkas  to  these  gloomy  subjects,  with 
reference  to  which  we  will  quote  two  stones,  the  one 
pathetic,  the  other  (unintentionally)  grotesque.  Neither  of 
them  bears  any  title  in  the  original,  but  we  may  style  the 
first — 

The  Dead  Mother* 

In  a  certain  village  there  lived  a  husband  and  wife — lived  hap- 
pily, lovingly,  peaceably.  All  their  neighbors  envied  them  ;  the 
sight  of  them  gave  pleasure  to  honest  folks.  Well,  the  mis- 
tress bare  a  son,  but  directly  after  it  was  born  she  died. 
The  poor  moujik  moaned  and  wept.  Above  all  he  was  in  de- 
spair about  the  babe.  How  was  he  to  nourish  it  now  ?  how  to 
bring  it  up  without  its  mother  ?  He  did  what  was  best,  and 
hired  an  old  woman  to  look  after  it.  Only  here  was  a  wonder ! 
all  day  long  the  babe  would  take  no  food,  and  did  nothing  but 
cry,  there  was  no  soothing  it  anyhow.  But  during  (a  great 
part  of)  the  night  one  could  fancy  it  wasn't  there  at  all,  so  silent- 
ly and  peacefully  did  it  sleep. 

*  Afanasief,  vi.   p.  325.    Wolf's  "  Niederlandische   Sagen,"  No.  336,  quoted  ir 
Thorpe'?  "  Northern  Mythology,"  i.  292.   Note  4. 


INTRODUCTORY.  33 

"What's  the  meaning  of  this  ?"  thinks  the  old  woman;  "sup- 
pose I  keep  awake  to-night ;  may  be  I  shall  find  out." 

Well,  just  at  midnight  she  heard  some  one  quietly  open  the 
door  and  go  up  to  the  cradle.  The  babe  became  still,  just  as  if 
it  was  being  suckled. 

The  next  night  the  same  thing  took  place,  and  the  third 
night,  too.  Then  she  told  the  moujik  about  it.  He  called  his 
kinsfolk  together,  and  held  counsel  with  them.  They  determin- 
ed on  this  ;  to  keep  awake  on  a  certain  night,  and  to  spy  out 
who  it  was  that  came  to  suckle  the  babe.  So  at  eventide  they 
all  lay  down  on  the  floor,  and  beside  them  they  set  a  lighted 
taper  hidden  in  an  earthen  pot. 

At  midnight  the  cottage  door  opened.  Some  one  stepped 
up  to  the  cradle.  The  babe  became  still.  At  that  moment  one 
of  the  kinsfolk  suddenly  brought  out  the  light.  They  looked, 
and  saw  the  dead  mother,  in  the  very  same  clothes  in  which 
she  had  been  buried,  on  her  knees  besides  the  cradle,  over 
which  she  bent  as  she  suckled  the  babe  at  her  dead  breast. 

The  moment  the  light  shone  in  the  cottage  she  stood  up, 
gazed  sadly  on  her  little  one,  and  then  went  out  of  the  room 
without  a  sound,  not  saying  a  word  to  anyone.  All  those  who 
saw  her  stood  for  a  time  terror-struck ;  and  then  they  found  the 
babe  was  dead.* 

The  second  story  will  serve  as  an  illustration  of  one  of 
the  Russian  customs  with  respect  to  the  dead,  and  also  of 
the  ideas  about  witchcraft,  still  prevalent  in  Russia.  We 
may  create  for  it  the  title  of — 

*  A  number  of  ghost  stories,  and  some  remarks  about  the  ideas  of  the  Russian 
peasants  with  respect  to  the  dead,  will  be  found  in  Chap.  V.  Scott  mentions  a 
story  in  "  The  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border,"  vol.  ii.  p.  223,  of  a  widcwer  who 
believeo.  he  was  haunted  by  his  dead  wife.  On  one  occasion  the  ghost,  to  p  ove  Lei 
identity,  gave  suck  to  her  surviving  infant. 


54  Л  US  SI  А  N  FOLK-  TALES. 

The  Dead  Witch.* 

There  was  once  an  old  woman  who  was  a  terrible  witch,  and 
she  had  a  daughter  and  a  granddaughter.  The  time  came  for 
the  old  crone  to  die,  so  she  summoned  her  daughter  and  gave 
her  these  instructions  : 

"  Mind,  daughter  !  when  I'm  dead,  don't  you  wash  my  body 
with  lukewarm  water ;  but  fill  a  cauldron,  make  it  boil  its  very 
hottest,  and  then  with  that  boiling  water  regularly  scald  me  all 
over." 

After  saying  this,  the  witch  lay  ill  two  or  three  days,  and 
then  died.  The  daughter  ran  round  to  all  her  neighbors,  beg- 
ging them  to  come  and  help  her  to  wash  the  old  woman,  and 
meantime  the  little  granddaughter  was  left  all  alone  in  the  cot- 
tage. And  this  is  what  she  saw  there.  All  of  a  sudden  there 
crept  out  from  beneath  the  stove  two  demons — a  big  one  and 
a  tiny  one — and  they  ran  up  to  the  dead  witch.  The  old  demon 
seized  her  by  the  feet,  and  tore  away  at  her  so  that  he  stripped 
off  all  her  skin  at  one  pull.     Then  he  said  to  the  little  demon  : 

"  Take  the  flesh  for  yourself,  and  lug  it  under  the  stove." 

So  the  little  demon  flung  his  arms  round  the  carcase,  and 
dragged  it  under  the  stove.  Nothing  was  left  of  the  old  woman 
but  her  skin.  Into  it  the  old  demon  inserted  himself,  and  then 
he  lay  down  just  where  the  witch  had  been  lying. 

Presently  the  daughter  came  back,  bringing  a  dozen  other 
women  with  her,  and  they  all  set  to  work  laying  out  the  corpse. 

"  Mammy,"  says  the  child,  "  they've  pulled  granny's  skin  off 
while  you  were  away.' 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  telling  such  lies  ? 

"It's  quite  true,  Mammy!  There  was  ever  such  a  blackie 
came  from  under  the  stove,  and  he  pulled  the  skin  off,  and  got 
into  it  himself." 

"  Hold  your  tongue,  naughty  child  !  you're  talking  nonsense  !" 
cried  the  old  crone's  daughter;  then  she  fetched  a  big  cauldron, 
filled  it  with  cold  water,  put  it  on  the  stove,  and  heated  it  till  it 

*  Vfanasiaf,  viii.  p.  165. 


INTRODUCTORY.  35 

boiled  furiously.  Then  the  women  lifted  up  the  old  crone,  laid 
her  in  a  trough,  took  hold  of  the  cauldron,  and  poured  the  whole 
of  the  boiling  water  over  her  at  once.  The  demon  couldn't 
stand  it.  He  leaped  out  of  the  trough,  dashed  through  the 
doorway,  and  disappeared,  skin  and  all.     The  women  stared : 

"What  marvel  is  this  ?  '  they  cried.  "  Here  was  the  dead 
woman,  and  now  she  isn't  here.  There's  nobody  left  to  lay  out 
or  to  bury.  The  demons  have  carried  her  off  before  our  very 
eyes ! "  * 

A  Russian  peasant  funeral  is  preceded  or  accompanied 
by  a  considerable  amount  of  wailing,  which  answers  in 
some  respect  to  the  Irish  "keening."  To  the  zaplachki^ 
or  laments,  which  are  uttered  on  such  occasions — fre- 
quently by  hired  wailers,  who  closely  resemble  the  Corsican 
"  vociferators,"  the  modern  Greek  '"  myrologists  '  — allu- 
sions are  sometimes  made  in  the  Skazkas.  In  the  "  Fox- 
wailer,"  %  for  example — one  of  the  variants  of  the  well- 
known  "  Jack  and  the  Beanstalk  "  story — an  old  man  puts 
his  wife  in  a  bag  and  attempts  to  carry  her  up  the  bean- 
stalk to  heaven.  Becoming  tired  on  the  way,  he  drops  the 
bag,  and  the  old  woman  is  killed.  After  weeping  over  her 
dead  body  he  sets  out  in  search  of  a  Wailer.  Meeting  a 
bear,  he  cries  "  Wail  a  bit,  Bear,  for  my  old  woman  !  I'll 
give  you  a  pair  of  nice  white  fowls."     The  bear  growls 

*  In  West-European  stories  the  devil  frequently  carries  off  a  witch's  soul  after 
death.  Here  the  fiend  enters  the  corpse,  or  rather  its  skin,  probably  intending  to 
reappear  as  a  vampire.  Compare  Bleek's  "  Reynard  the  Fox  in  South  Africa," 
No.  24,  in  which  a  lion  squeezes  itself  into  the  skin  of  a  girl  it  has  killed.  I  have 
generally  rendered  by  "  demon,"  instead  of  "  devil,"  the  word  chort  when  it  occurs 
in  stories  of  this  class,  as  the  spirits  to  which  they  refer  are  manifestly  akin  to  those 
of  oriental  demonology. 

t  For  an  account  of  which,  see  the  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  pp.  333-334- 
The  best  Russian  work  on  the  subject  is  Barsof's  "  Prichitaniya  Syevemago  Kraya," 
Moscow,  1872- 

X  Afanasief,  iv.  No-  9. 


36  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

out  <;  Oh,  dear  granny  of  mine  !  how  I  grieve  for  thee  !  " 
"  No,  no  !  "  says  the  old  man,  "  you  can't  wail."  Going  a 
little  further  he  tries  a  wolf,  but  the  wolf  succeeds  no  better 
than  the  bear.  At  last  a  fox  comes  by,  and  on  being  ap- 
pealed to,  begins  to  cry  aloud  "  Turu-Turu,  grandmother  ! 
grandfather  has  killed  thee  !  " — a  wail  which  pleases  the 
widower  so  much  that  he  hands  over  the  fowls  to  the  fox 
at  once,  and  asks,  enraptured,  for  "  that  strain  again  !  "* 

One  of  the  most  curious  of  the  stories  which  relate  to  a 
village  burial, — one  in  which  also  the  feeling  with  which 
the  Russian  villagers  sometimes  regard  their  clergy  finds 
expression — is  that  called — 

The  Treasure.! 

In  a  certain  kingdom  there  lived  an  old  couple  in  great  poverty. 
Sooner  or  later  the  old  woman  died.  It  was  in  winter,  in  severe 
and  frosty  weather.  The  old  man  went  round  to  his  friends  and 
neighbors,  begging  them  to  help  him  to  dig  a  grave  for  the  old 
woman ;  but  his  friends  and  neighbors,  knowing  his  great  poverty, 
all  flatly  refused,  The  old  man  went  to  the  pope, %  (but  in  that 
village  they  had  an  awfully  grasping  pope,  one  without  any 
conscience),  and  says  he  : — 

"  Lend  a  hand,  reverend  father,  to  get  my  old  woman  buried." 

"  But  have  you  got  any  money  to  pay  for  the  funeral  ?  if 
so,  friend,  pay  up  beforehand  !  " 

"  It's  no  use  hiding  anything  from  you.  Not  a  single  copeck 
have  I  at  home.  But  if  you'll  wait  a  little,  I'll  earn  some,  and 
then  I'll  pay  you  with  interest — on  my  word  I'll  pay  you  !  " 

The  pope  wouldn't  so  much  as  listen  to  the  old  man. 

*  Professor  de  Gubernatis  justly  remarks  that  this  "  howling  "  is  more  in  keep- 
ing with  the  nature  of  the  eastern  jackal  than  with  that  of  its  western  counterpart, 
the  fox.     "Zoological  Mythology,"  ii.  130. 

t  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  45. 

1  /V,V  is  the  ordinary  but  disrespectful  term  fcr  a  pnest  {Svyashchtxnik), 
W  f'pcri:h  n  t.iT  a  priest's  son. 


INTROD  L/C  TOR  V.  37 

"  If  yet:  haven't  any  money,  don't  you  dare  to  come  here," 
says  he. 

"  What's  to  be  done  ?  "  thinks  the  old  man.  "  I'll  go  to  the 
garveyard,  dig  a  grave  as  I  best  can,  and  bury  the  old  woman 
myself."  So  he  took  an  axe  and  a  shovel,  and  went  to  the  grave- 
yard. When  he  got  there  he  began  to  prepare  a  grave.  He 
chopped  away  the  frozen  ground  on  the  top  with  the  axe,  and 
then  he  took  to  the  shovel.  He  dug  and  dug,  and  at  last  he  dug 
out  a  metal  pot.  Looking  into  it  he  saw  that  it  was  stuffed  full 
of  ducats  that  shone  like  fire.  The  old  man  was  immensely  de- 
lighted, and  cried,  "  Glory  be  to  Thee,  О  Lord  !  I  shall  have 
wherewithal  both  to  bury  my  old  woman,  and  to  perform  the 
rites  of  remembrance." 

He  did  not  go  on  digging  the  grave  any  longer,  but  took  the 
pot  of  gold  and  carried  it  home.  Well,  we  all  know  what  money 
will  do — everything  went  as  smooth  as  oil !  In  a  trice  there 
were  found  good  folks  to  dig  the  grave  and  fashion  the  coffin. 
The  old  man  sent  his  daughter-in-law  to  purchase  meat  and 
drink  and  different  kind  of  relishes — everything  there  ought  to 
be  at  memorial  feasts — and  he  himself  took  a  ducat  in  his  hand 
and  hobbled  pack  again  to  the  pope's.  The  moment  he  reached 
the  door,  out  flew  the  pope  at  him. 

"  You  were  distinctly  told,  you  old  lout,  that  you  were  not  to 
come  here  without  money ;  and  now  you've  slunk  back  again." 

"  Don't  be  angry,  batyushka,"  *  said  the  old  man  imploringly. 
"Here's  gold  for  you.  If  you'll  only  bury  my  old  woman,  I'll 
never  forget  your  kindness." 

The  pope  took  the  money,  and  didn't  know  how  best  to 
receive  the  old  man,  where  to  seat  him,  with  what  words  to 
smooth  him  down.  "  Well  now,  old  friend  !  Be  of  good  cheer ; 
everything  shall  be  done,"  said  he. 

The  old  man  made  his  bow,  and  went  home,  and  the  pope 
and  his  wife  began  talking  about  him. 

"  There  now,  the  old  hunks  !  "  they  say.     "  So  poor,  forsooth, 

•  "  Father  dear,"  or  "  reverend  father." 


38  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

so  poor!  And  yet  he's  paid  a  gold  piece.  Many  a  defunct 
person  of  quality  have  I  buried  in  my  time,  but  I  never  got  so 
from  anyone  before." 

The  pope  got  under  weigh  with  all  his  retinue,  and  buried 
the  old  crone  in  proper  style.  After  the  funeral  the  old  man 
invited  him  to  his  house,  to  take  part  in  the  feast  in  memory  of 
the  dead.  Well,  they  entered  the  cottage,  and  sat  down  to  table 
-'-and  there  appeared  from  somewhere  or  other  meat  and  drink 
and  all  sorts  of  snacks,  everything  in  profusion.  The  (reverend) 
guest  sat  down,  ate  for  three  people,  looked  greedily  at  what 
was  not  his.  The  (other)  guests  finished  their  meal,  and  sep- 
arated to  go  to  their  homes ;  then  the  pope  also  rose  from  the 
table.  The  old  man  went  to  speed  him  on  his  way.  As  soon 
as  they  got  into  the  farmyard,  and  the  pope  saw  they  were  alone 
at  last,  he  began  questioning  the  old  man  :  "  Listen,  friend ! 
confess  to  me,  don't  leave  so  much  as  a  single  sin  on  your  soul 
— it's  just  the  same  before  me  as  before  God  !  How  have  you 
managed  to  get  on  at  such  a  pace  ?  You  used  to  be  a  poor 
moujik,  and  now — marry !  where  did  it  come  from  ?  Confess, 
friend,  whose  breath  have  you  stopped?  whom  have  you 
pillaged  ?  " 

"  What  are  you  talking  about,  batyushka  ?  I  will  tell  you  the 
exact  truth.  I  have  not  robbed,  nor  plundered,  nor  killed  any- 
one.    A  treasure  tumbled  into  my  hands  of  its  own  accord." 

And  he  told  him  how  it  all  happened.  When  the  pope 
heard  these  words  he  actually  shook  all  over  with  greediness. 
Going  home,  he  did  nothing  by  night  and  by  day  but  think, 
"  That  such  a  wretched  lout  of  a  moujik  should  have  come  in 
for  such  a  lump  of  money  !  Is  there  any  way  of  tricking  him 
now,  and  getting  this  pot  of  money  out  of  him  ?  "  He  told  his 
wife  about  it,  and  he  and  she  discussed  the  matter  together,  and 
held  counsel  over  it. 

"  Listen,  mother,"  says  he  ;  "we've  a  goat,  haven't  we  ?" 

"  Yes." 

"  All  right,  then  ;  we'll  wait  until  it's  night,  and  then  we'll  из 
the  job  properly." 


INTROD  UCTOR  Y.  39 

Lafe  in  the  evening  the  pope  dragged  the  goat  indoors,  killed 
it,  and  took  off  its  skin — horns,  beard,  and  all  complete.  Then 
he  pulled  the  goat's  skin  over  himself  and  said  to  his  wife  ; 

"Bring  a  needle  and  thread,  mother,  and  fasten  up  the  skin 
all  round,  so  that  it  mayn't  slip  off." 

So  she  took  a  strong  needle,  and  some  tough  thread,  and 
sewed  him  up  in  the  goatskin.  Well,  at  the  dead  of  night,  the 
pope  went  straight  to  the  old  man's  cottage,  got  under  the  win- 
dow, and  began  knocking  and  scratching.  The  old  man  hearing 
the  noise,  jumped  up  and  asked  : 

"Who's  there?  " 

"The  Devil!" 

"  Ours  is  a  holy  spot !  *"  shrieked  the  moujik,  and  began 
crossing  himself  and  uttering  prayers. 

"  Listen,  old  man,"  says  the  pope,  "  From  me  thou  will  not 
escape,  although  thou  may'st  pray,  although  thou  may'st  cross 
thyself;  much  better  give  me  back  my  pot  of  money,  otherwise  I 
will  make  thee  pay  for  it.  See  now,  I  pitied  thee  in  thy  misfor- 
tune, and  I  showed  thee  the  treasure,  thinking  thou  wouldst 
take  a  little  of  it  to  pay  for  the  funeral,  but  thou  hast  pillaged  it 
utterly." 

The  old  man  looked  out  of  window — the  goat's  horns  and 
beard  caught  his  eye — it  was  the  Devil  himself,  no  doubt  of  it. 

"Let's  get  rid  of  him,  money  and  all."  thinks  the  old  man  ; 
"  I've  lived  before  now  without  money,  and  now  I'll  go  on  living 
without  it." 

So  he  took  the  pot  of  gold,  carried  it  outside,  flung  it  on  the 
ground,  and  bolted  indoors  again  as  quickly  as  possible. 

The  pope  seized  the  pot  of  money,  and  hastened  home. 
When  he  got  back,  "  Come,"  says  he,  "  the  money  is  in  our 
hands  now.  Here,  mother,  put  it  well  out  of  sight,  and  take  a 
sharp  knife,  cut  the  thread,  and  pull  the  goatskin  off  me  before 
anyone  sees  it. 

She  took  a  knife,  and  was  beginning  to  cut  the  thread  at  the 
seam,  when  forth  flowed  blood,  and  the  pope  began  to- howl : 

*  A  phrase  often  used  by  the  peasants,  when  frightened  by  anything  of  supernatural 
appearance. 


10  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"Oh!  it  hurts,  mother,  it  hurts!  don't  cut  mother,  ^don't 
cut !  " 

She  began  ripping  the  skin  open  in  another  place,  but  with 
just  the  same  result.  The  goatskin  had  united  with  his  body  all 
round.  And  all  that  they  tried,  and  all  that  they  did,  even  to  taking 
the  money  back  to  the  old  man,  was  of  no  avail.  The  goatskin 
remained  clinging  tight  to  the  pope  all  the  same.  God  evidently 
did  it  to  punish  him  for  his  great  greediness. 

A  somewhat  less  heathenish  story  with  regard  to  money 
is  the  following,  which  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen  of  the 
Skazkas  which  bear  the  impress  of  the  genuine  reverence 
which  the  peasants  feel  for  their  religion,  whatever  may  be 
the  feelings  they  entertain  towards  its  ministers.  While 
alluding  to  this  subject,  by  the  way,  it  may  be  as  well  to 
remark  that  no  great  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  the 
evidence  contained  in  the  folk-tales  of  any  land,  with  re- 
spect to  the  relations  between  its  clergy  and  their  flocks. 
The  local  parson  of  folk-lore  is,  as  a  general  rule,  merely 
the  innocent  inheritor  of  the  bad  reputation  acquired  by 
some  ecclesiastic  of  another  age  and  clime 

The  Cross-Surety.* 

Once  upon  a  time  two  merchants  lived  in  a  certain  town  just  on 
the  verge  of  a  stream.  One  of  them  was  a  Russian,  the  other  a 
Tartar;  both  were  rich.  But  the  Russian  got  so  utterly  ruined 
by  some  business  or  other  that  he  hadn't  a  single  bit  of  property 
left.  Everything  he  had  was  confiscated  or  stolen.  The  Rus- 
sian merchant  had  nothing  to  turn  to — he  was  left  as  poor  as  a 
ra':.f  So  he  went  to  his  friend  the  Tartar,  and  besought  him  to 
le»  1  him  seme  money. 

"  Get  me  a  surety,"  says  the  Tartar. 

"  But  whpm  can  I  get  for  you,  seeing  that  I  haven't   a   soul 

*  Afanasief,  Skazki,  vii.  No.  4g. 

t  The  Russian  expression  is  gol  kak  sokbl,  "  bare  as  a  hawk." 


LXTROD  UCTOR  V.  4 1 

belonging  to  me  ?  Stay,  though  !  there's  a  surety  for  you,  the 
life-giving  cross  on  the  church  !  " 

"  Very  good,  my  friend  ! "  says  the  Tartar.  "  I'll  trust  your 
cross.  Your  faith  or  ours,  it's  all  one  to  me." 

And  he  gave  the  Russian  merchant  fifty  thousand  roubles 
The  Russian  took  the  money,  bade  the  Tartar  farewell,  and 
went  back  to  trade  in  divers  places. 

By  the  end  of  two  years  he  had  gained  a  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  rubles  by  the  fifty  thousand  he  had  borrowed.  Now 
he  happened  to  be  sailing  one  day  along  the  Danube,  going  with 
wares  from  one  place  to  another,  when  all  of  a  sudden  a  storm 
arose,  and  was  on  the  point  of  sinking  the  ship  he  was  in.  Then 
the  merchant  remembered  how  he  had  borrowed  money,  and 
given  the  life-giving  cross  as  a  surety,  but  had  not  paid  his  debt. 
That  was  doubtless  the  cause  of  the  storm  arising  !  No  sooner 
had  he  said  this  to  himself  than  the  storm  began  to  subside. 
The  merchant  took  a  barrel,  counted  out  fifty  thousand  roubles, 
wrote  the  Tartar  a  note,  placed  it,  together  with  the  money,  in 
the  barrel,  and  then  flung  the  barrel  into  the  water,  saying  to 
himself :  "  As  I  gave  the  cross  as  my  surety  to  the  Tartar,  '.he 
money  will  be  certain  to  reach  him." 

The  barrel  straightway  sank  to  the  bottom  ;  everyone  sup- 
posed the  money  was  lost.  But  what  happened  ?  In  the  Tar- 
tar's house  there  lived  a  Russian  kitchen-maid.  One  day  she 
happened  to  go  to  the  river  for  water,  and  when  she  got  there 
she  saw  a  barrel  floating  along.  So  she  went  a  little  way  into 
the  water  and  began  trying  to  get  hold  of  it.  But  it  wasn't  to  be 
done  !  When  she  made  at  the  barrel,  it  retreated  from  her  : 
when  she  turned  from  the  barrel  to  the  shore,  it  floated  after 
her.  She  went  on  trying  and  trying  for  some  time,  then  she 
went  home  and  told  her  master  all  that  had  happened.  At  first 
he  wouldn't  believe  her,  but  at  last  he  determined  to  go  to  the 
river  and  see  for  himself  what  sort  of  barrel  it  was  that  was 
floating  there.  When  he  got  there — sure  enough  there  was  the 
barrel  floating,  and  not  far  from  the  shore.  The  Tartar  took  off 
his  clothes  and  went  into  the  water ;  before   he  had  gone  any 


42  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

distance  the  barrel  came  floating  up  to  him  of  its  own  accord 
He  laid  hold  of  it,  carried  it  home,  opened  it,  and  looked  inside. 
There  he  saw  a  quantity  of  money,  and  on  top  of  the  money  a 
note.  He  took  out  the  note  and  read  it,  and  this  is  what  was 
said  in  it : — 

"  Dear  friend  !  I  return  to  you  the  fifty  thousand  roubles  for 
which,  when  I  borrowed  them  from  you,  I  gave  the  life-giving 
cross  as  a  surety." 

The  Tartar  read  these  words  and  was  astounded  at  the  pow- 
er of  the  life-giving  cross.  He  counted  the  money  over  to  see 
whether  the  full  sum  was  really  there.     It  was  there  exactly. 

Meanwhile,  the  Russian  merchant,  after  trading  some  five 
years,  made  a  tolerable  fortune.  Well,  he  returned  to  his  old 
home,  and,  thinking  that  his  barrel  had  been  lost,  he  considered 
it  his  first  duty  to  settle  with  the  Tartar.  So  he  went  to  his 
house  and  offered  him  the  money  he  had  borrowed.  Then  the 
Tartar  told  him  all  that  had  happened  and  how  he  had  found 
the  barrel  in  the  river,  with  the  money  and  the  note  inside  it. 
Then  he  showed  him  the  note,  saying: 

"Is  that  really  your  hand  ?  " 

"  It  certainly  is,"  replied  the  other. 

Every  one  was  astounded  at  this  wondrous  manifestation, 
and  the  Tartar  said  : 

"Then  I've  no  more  money  to  receive  from  you,  brother; 
take  that  back  again." 

The  Russian  merchant  had  a  service  performed  as  a  thank- 
offering  to  God,  and  next  day  the  Tartar  was  baptized  with  all 
his  household.  The  Russian  merchant  was  his  godfather,  and 
the  kitchen-maid  his  godmother.  After  that  they  both  lived 
long  and  happily,  survived  to  a  great  age,  and  then  died  peace- 
fully* 

There  is  one  marked  feature  in  the  Russian  peasant's 
character  to  which  the  Skazkas  frequently  refer — his  pas- 
sion for  drink.     To  him  strong  liquor  is  a  friend,  a  comfor- 

*  In  another  story  St.  Nicola's  picture  is  the  surety. 


INTROD  UCTOR  Y.  43 

ter,  a  solace  amid  the  ills  of  life.  Intoxication  is  not  so 
much  an  evil  to  be  dreaded  or  remembered  with  shame,  as 
a  joy  to  be  fondly  anticipated,  or  classed  with  the  happy 
memories  of  the  past.  By  him  drunkenness  is  regarded, 
like  sleep,  as  the  friend  of  woe — and  a  friend  whose  ser- 
vices can  be  even  more  readily  commanded.  On  certain 
occasions  he  almost  believes  that  to  get  drunk  is  a  duty  he 
owes  either  to  the  Church,  or  to  the  memory  of  the  Dead ; 
at  times  without  the  slightest  apparent  cause,  he  is  seized 
by  a  sudden  and  irresistible  craving  for  ardent  spirits,  and 
he  commences  a  drinking-bout  which  lasts — with  intervals 
of  coma — for  days,  or  even  weeks,  after  which  he  resumes 
his  everyday  life  and  his  usual  sobriety  as  calmly  as  if  no 
interruption  had  taken  place.  All  these  ideas  and  habits 
of  his  find  expression  in  his  popular  tales,  giving  rise  to 
incidents  which  are  often  singularly  out  of  keeping  with 
the  rest  of  the  narrative  in  which  they  occur.  In  one  of 
the  many  variants,*  for  instance,  of  a  wide-spread  and  well 
known  story — that  of  the  three  princesses  who  are  rescued 
frem  captivity  by  a  hero  from  whom  they  are  afterwards 
carried  away,  and  who  refuse  to  get  married  until  certain 
clothes  or  shoes  or  other  things  impossible  for  ordinary 
workmen  to  make  are  supplied  to  them — an  unfortunate 
shoemaker  is  told  that  if  he  does  not  next  day  produce  the 
necessary  shoes  (of  perfect  fit,  although  no  measure  has 
been  taken,  and  all  set  thick  with  precious  stones)  he  shall 
be  hanged.  Away  he  goes  at  once  to  a  traktir,  or  tavern, 
and  sets  to  work  to  drown  his  grief  in  drink.  After  awhile 
he  begins  to  totter.  "  Now  then,"  he  says,  "  I'll  take  home 
a  bicker  of  spirits  with  me,  and  go  to  bed.  And  to-morrow 
morning,  as  soon  as  they  come  to  fetch  me  to  be  hanged, 

•  Another  variant  of  this  story,  under  the  title  of  "  Norka,"  will  be  quoted  in  full  in 
the  next  chapter. 


44  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

I'll  toss  off  half  the  bickerful.      They  may  hang  me  then 
without  my  knowing  anything  about  it."  * 

In  the  story  of  the  "  Purchased  Wife,"  the  Princess 
Anastasia,  the  Beautiful,  enables  the  youth  Ivan,  who 
ransoms  her,  to  win  a  large  sum  of  money  in  the  following 
manner.  Having  worked  a  piece  of  embroidery,  she  tells 
him  to  take  it  to  market.  "  But  if  any  one  purchases  it," 
says  she,  "  don't  take  any  money  from  him,  but  ask  him  to 
give  you  liquor  enough  to  make  you  drunk."  Ivan  obeys, 
and  this  is  the  result.  He  drank  till  he  was  intoxicated, 
and  when  he  left  the  kabak  (or  pothouse)  he  tumbled  into 
a  muddy  pool.  A  crowd  collected  and  folks  looked  at  him 
and  said  scoffingly,  "  Oh,  the  fair  youth  !  now'd  be  the  time 
for  him  to  go  to  church  to  get  married  !  " 

"  Fair  or  foul !  "  says  he,  "  if  I  bid  her,  Anastasia  the 
Beautiful  will  kiss  the  crown  of  my  head." 

"  Don't  go  bragging  like  that !  "  says  a  rich  merchant — 
"why  she  wouldn't  even  so  much  as  look  at  you,"  and  offers 
to  stake  all  that  he  is  worth  on  the  truth  of  his  assertion. 
Ivan  accepts  the  wager.  The  Princess  appears,  takes  him 
by  the  hand,  kisses  him  on  the  crown  of  his  head,  wipes 
the  dirt  off  him,  and  leads  him  home,  still  inebriated  but 
no  longer  impecunious,  f 

Sometimes  even  greater  people  than  the  peasants  get 
drunk.  The  story  of  "  Semiletka  "  % — a  variant  of  the  well 
known  tale  of  how  a  woman's  wit  enables  her  to  guess  all 
riddles,  to  detect  all  deceits,  and  to  conquer  all  difficulties — 
relates  how  the  heroine  was  chosen  by  a  Voyvode  §  as  his 

*  Afanasief,  vii.  p.  107. 
t  Afanasief,  vii.  p.  146. 

X  Or  "  The  Seven-year-old."     Khudyakof,  No.   6.     See   Grimm,   No.  94,  *'  Dei 
kluge  Bauerntochter,"  and  iii.  170-2. 

§  Voevoda,  now  a  general,  formerly  meant  a  civil  governor,  etc. 


INTRO  D  UCTOk  V.  45 

> 

wife,  with  the  stipulation  that  if  she  meddled  in  the  affairs 
of  his  Voyvodeship  she  was  to  be  sent  back  to  her  father, 
but  allowed  to  take  with  her  whatever  thing  belonging  to 
her  she  prized  most.  The  marriage  takes  place,  but  one 
day  the  well  known  case  comes  before  him  for  decision,  of 
the  foal  of  the  borrowed  mare — does  it  belong  to  the  owner 
of  the  mare,  or  to  the  borrower  in  whose  possession  it  was 
at  the  time  of  foaling?  The  Voyvode  adjudges  it  to  the 
borrower,  and  this  is  how  the  story  ends  : — 

"Semiletka  heard  of  this  and  could  not  restrain  herself, 
but  said  that  he  had  decided  unfairly.  The  Voyvode  waxed 
wroth,  and  demanded  a  divorce.  After  dinner  Semiletka 
was  obliged  to  go  back  to  her  father's  house.  But  during 
the  dinner  she  made  the  Voyvode  drink  till  he  was  intoxi- 
cated. He  drank  his  fill  and  went  to  sleep.  While  he 
was  sleeping  she  had  him  placed  in  a  carriage,  and  then 
she  drew*  away  with  him  to  her  father's.  When  they  had 
arrived  there  the  Voyvode  awoke  and  said — 

"  '  Who  brought  me  here  ? ' 

"  '  I  brought  you,'  said  Semiletka ;  '  there  was  an  agree- 
ment between  us  that  I  might  take  away  with  me  whatever 
I  prized  most.     And  so  I  have  taken  you ! ' 

"  The  Voyvode  marvelled  at  her  wisdom,  and  made 
peace  with  her.  He  and  she  then  returned  home  and  went 
on  living  prosperously." 

But  although  drunkenness  is  very  tenderly  treated  in 
the  Skazkas,  as  well  as  in  the  folk-songs,  it  forms  the  subject 
of  many  a  moral  lesson,  crouched  in  terms  of  the  utmost 
severity,  in  the  stikhi  (or  poems  of  a  religious  character, 
bung  by  the  blind  beggars  and  other  wandering  minstrels 
who  sing  in  front  of  churches),  and  also  in  the  "  Legends," 
which  are  tales  of  a  semi-religious  (or  rather  demi-semi- 


46  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

religious)  nature.  No  better  specimen  of  the  stones  of 
this  class  referring  to  drunkenness  can  be  offered  than  the 
history  of — 

The  Awful  Drunkard.* 

Once  there  was  an  old  man  who  was  such  an  awful  drunkard 
as  passes  all  description.  Well,  one  day  he  went  to  a  kabak, 
intoxicated  himself  with  liquor,  and  then  went  staggering  home 
blind  drunk.  Now  his  way  happened  to  lie  across  a  river. 
When  he  came  to  the  river,  he  didn't  stop  long  to  consider,  but 
kicked  off  his  boots,  hung  them  round  his  neck,  and  walked 
into  the  water.  Scarcely  had  he  got  half-way  across  when  he 
tripped  over  a  stone,  tumbled  into  the  water — and  there  was  an 
end  of  him. 

Now,  he  left  a  son  called  Petrusha.f  When  Peter  saw  that 
his  father  had  disappeared  and  left  no  trace  behind,  he  took  the 
matter  greatly  to  heart  for  a  time,  he  wept  for  awhile,  he  had  a 
service  performed  for  the  repose  of  his  father's  soul,  and  he 
began  to  act  as  head  of  the  family.  One  Sunday  he  went  to 
church  to  pray  to  God.  As  he  passed  along  the  road  a  woman 
was  pounding  away  in  front  of  him.  She  walked  and  walked, 
stumbled  over  a  stone,  and  began  swearing  at  it,  saying,  "  What 
devil  shoved  you  under  my  feet  ? " 

Hearing  these  words,  Petrusha  said  : 

"  Good  day,  aunt !  whither  away  ?  " 

"  To  church,  my  dear,  to  pray  to  God." 

"  But  isn't  this  sinful  conduct  of  yours  ?  You're  going  to 
church,  to  pray  to  God,  and  yet  you  think  about  the  Evil  One  ; 
your  foot  stumbles  and  you  throw  the  fault  on  the  Devil !  " 

Well,  he  went  to  church  and  then  returned  home,  He 
walked  and  walked,  and  suddenly,  goodness  knows  whence, 
there  appeared  before  him  a  fine- looking  man,  who  saluted  hin? 
and  said : 

•  AfaDasieL    "  Legendui,"  No.  29.  t  Diminutive  of  Peters. 


INTRO D  UCTOR  Y.  47 

"Thanks,  Petrusha,  for  your  good  word  !  " 

"  Who  are  you,  and  why  do  you  thank  me  ?  "  asks  Petrusha. 

"  I  am  the  Devil.*  I  thank  you  because,  when  that  woman 
stumbled,  and  scolded  me  without  a  cause,  you  said  a  good 
word  for  me."  Then  he  began  to  entreat  him,  saying,  "  Come 
and  pay  me  a  visit,  Petrusha.  How  I  will  reward  you  to  be 
sure  !  With  silver  and  with  gold,  with  everything  will  I  endow 
you." 

"Very  good,"  says  Petrusha,  "  I'll  come." 

Having  told  him  all  about  the  road  he  was  to  take,  the  Devil 
straightway  disappeared,  and  Petrusha  returned  home. 

Next  day  Petrusha  set  off  on  his  visit  to  the  Devil.  He 
walked  and  walked,  for  three  whole  days  did  he  walk,  and  then  he 
reached  a  great  forest,  dark  and  dense — impossible  even  to  see 
the  sky  from  within  it !  And  in  that  forest  there  stood  a  rich 
palace.  Well,  he  entered  the  palace,  and  a  fair  maiden  caught 
sight  of  him.  She  had  been  stolen  from  a  certain  village  by  the 
evil  spirit.     And  when  she  caught  sight  of  him  she  cried : 

"  Whatever  have  you  come  here  for  good  youth  ?  here 
devils  abide,  they  will  tear  you  to  pieces." 

Petrusha  told  her  how  and  why  he  had  made  his  appearance 
in  that  palace. 

"  Well  now,  mind  this,"  says  the  fair  maiden ;  "the  Devil  will 
begin  giving  you  silver  and  gold.  Don't  take  any  of  it,  but  ask 
him  to  give  you  the  very  wretched  horse  which  the  evil  spirits 
use  for  fetching  wood  and  water.  That  horse  is  your  father. 
When  he  came  out  of  the  kabak  drunk,  and  fell  into  the  water, 
the  devils  immediately  seized  him  and  made  him  their  hack,  and 
now  they  use  him  for  fetching  wood  and  water." 

Presently  there  appeared  the  gallant  who  had  invited 
Petrusha,  and  began  to  regale  him  with  all  kinds  of  meat  and 
drink.  And  when  the  time  came  for  Petrusha  to  be  going  home- 
wards, "  Come,"  said  the  Devil,  "  I  will  provide  you  with 
money  and  with  a  capital  horse,  so  that  you  will  speedily  get 
home." 

•  The  word  employed  here  is  not  chart,  but  diavol. 


48  R  USSIA N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

"  I  don't  want  anything,"  replied  Petrusha.  Only,  if  you 
wish  to  make  me  a  present,  give  me  that  sorry  jade  which  you 
use  for  carrying  wood  and  wat.^r." 

"  What  good  will  that  be  to  you  ?  If  you  ride  it  home 
quickly,  I  expect  it  will  die  !  " 

"  No  matter,  let  me  have  it.     I  won't  take  any  other." 

So  the  Devil  gave  him  that  sorry  jade.  Petrusha  took  it  by 
the  bridle  and  led  it  away.  As  soon  as  he  reached  the  gates 
there  appeared  the  fair  maiden,  and  asked  : 

"  Havt  you  got  the  horse  ?  " 

"  I  have." 

"  Well  then,  good  youth,  when  you  get  nigh  to  your  village, 
take  off  your  cross,  trace  a  circle  three  times  about  this  horse, 
and  hang  the  cross  round  its  neck." 

Petrusha  took  leave  of  her  and  went  his  way.  When  he 
came  nigh  to  his  village  he  did  everything  exactly  as  the  maiden 
had  instructed  him.  He  took  off  his  copper  cross,  traced  a 
circle  three  times  about  the  horse,  and  hung  the  cross  round  its 
neck.  And  immediately  the  horse  was  no  longer  there,  but  in 
its  place  there  stood  before  Petrusha  his  own  father.  The  son 
looked  upon  the  father,  burst  into  tears,  and  led  him  to  his  cot- 
tage ;  and  for  three  days  the  old  man  remained  without  speak- 
ing, unable  to  make  use  of  his  tongue.  And  after  that  they 
lived  happily  and  in  all  prosperity.  The  old  man  entirely  gave 
up  drinking,  and  to  his  very  last  day  never  took  so  much  as  a 
single  drop  of  spirits.* 

The  Russian  peasant  is  by  no  means  deficient  in 
humor,  a  fact  of  which  the  Skazkas  offer  abundant  evi- 
dence. But  it  is  not  easy  to  find  stories  which  can  be  quoted 
at  full  length  as  illustrations  of  that  humor.  The  jokes 
which  form  the  themes  of  the  Russian  facetious  tales  are 
for  the  most  part  common  to  all  Europe.  And  a  similar 
assertion  may  be  made  with  regard  to  the  stories  of  most 

*  Some  remarks  on  the  stories  of  this  class,  will  be  found  in  Chap.  VI.  The 
Russian  peasants  still  believe  that  all  people  who  drink  themselves  to  death  are  used 
as  carriers  of  wood  and  water  in  the  infernal  regions. 


INTROD  UCTOR  V.  4  9 

lands.  An  unfamiliar  joke  is  but  rarely  to  be  discovered 
in  the  lower  strata  of  fiction.  He  who  has  read  the  folk- 
tales of  one  country  only,  is  apt  to  attribute  to  its  inhab- 
itants a  comic  originality  to  which  they  can  lay  no  claim. 
And  so  a  Russian  who  knows  the  stories  of  his  own  land, 
but  has  not  studied  those  of  other  countries,  is  very  liable 
to  credit  the  Skazkas  with  the  undivided  possession  of  a 
number  of  "  merry  jests  "  in  which  they  can  claim  but  a 
very  small  share — jests  which  in  reality  form  the  stock-in- 
trade  of  rustic  wags  among  the  vineyards  of  France  or 
Germany,  or  on  the  hills  of  Greece,  or  beside  the  fiords  of 
Norway,  or  along  the  coasts  of  Brittany  or  Argyleshire — 
which  for  centuries  have  set  beards  wagging  in  Cairo  and 
Ispahan,  and  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  hour  have  cheered 
the  heart  of  the  villager  weary  with  his  day's  toil  under  the 
burning  sun  of  India. 

It  is  only  when  the  joke  hinges  upon  something  which 
is  peculiar  to  a  people  that  it  is  likely  to  be  found  among 
that  people  only.  But  most  of  the  Russian  jests  turn  upon 
pivots  which  are  familiar  to  all  the  world,  and  have  for 
their  themes  such  common-place  topics  as  the  incorrigible 
folly  of  man,  the  inflexible  obstinacy  of  woman.  And  in 
their  treatments  of  these  subjects  they  offer  very  few  novel 
features.  It  is  strange  how  far  a  story  of  this  kind  may 
travel,  and  yet  how  little  alternation  it  may  undergo.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  skits  against  women  which  are  so  uni- 
versally popular.  Far  away  in  outlying  districts  of  Russia 
we  find  the  same  time-honored  quips  which  have  so  long 
figured  in  collections  of  English  facetiae.  There  is  the 
good  old  story,  for  instance,  of  the  dispute  between  a 
husband  and  wife  as  to  whether  a  certain  rope  has  been 
cut  with  a  knife  or  with  scissors,  resulting  in  the  murder  of 
the  scissors-upholding  wife,  who  is  pitched  into  the  river 

4 


50  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

by  her  knife-advocating  husband ;  but  not  before  she  has, 
in  her  very  death  agony,  testified  to  her  belief  in  the  scis- 
sors hypothesis  by  a  movement  of  her  fingers  above  the 
surface  of  the  stream.*  In  a  Russian  form  of  the  story, 
told  in  the  government  of  Astrakhan,  the  quarrel  is  about 
the  husband's  beard.  He  says  he  has  shaved  it,  his  wife 
declares  he  has  only  cut  it  off.  He  flings  her  into  a  deep 
pool,  and  calls  to  her  to  say  "  shaved."  Utterance  is 
impossible  to  her,  but  "  she  lifts  one  hand  above  the 
water  and  by  means  of  two  fingers  makes  signs  to  show 
that  it  was  cut."  f  The  story  has  even  settled  into  a  pro- 
verb. Of  a  contradictory  woman  the  Russian  peasants 
affirm  that,  "  If  you  say  '  shaved  '  she'll  say  '  cut.'  " 

In  the  same  way  another  story  shows  us  in  Russian 
garb  our  old  friend  the  widower  who,  when  looking  for  his 
drowned  wife — a  woman  of  a  very  antagonistic  disposition 
— went  up  the  river  instead  of  down,  saying  to  his  aston- 
ished companions,  "  She  always  did  everything  contrary- 
wise,  so  now,  no  doubt,  she's  gone  against  the  stream."  % 
A  common  story  again  is  that  of  the  husband  who,  having 
confided  a  secret  to  his  wife  which  he  justly  fears  she  will 
reveal,  throws  discredit  on  her  evidence  about  things  in 
general  by  making  her  believe  various  absurd  stories  which 
she  hastens  to  repeat.  %     The  final  paragraph  of  one  of  the 

*  In  the  sixty-fourth  story  of  Asbjornsen's  "  Norske  Folke-Eventyr,"  (Ny  Sara- 
ling,  1871)  the  dispute  between  the  husband  and  wife  is  about  a  cornfield — as  to 
whether  it  should  be  reaped  or  shorn — and  she  tumbles  into  a  pool  while  she  is  mak- 
ing clipping  gestures  "  under  her  husband's  nose."  In  the  old  fabliau  of  "  Le  Pre 
Tondu"  (Le  Grand  d'  Aussy,  Fabliaux,  1829,  iii.  185),  the  husband  cuts  out  the 
tongue  of  hia  wife,  to  prevent  her  from  repeating  that  his  meadow  has  been  clipped, 
where  дроп  she  makes  a  clipping  sign  with  her  fingers.  In  Poggio's  "  Facetiae,"  the 
wife  is  doubly  aggravating-  For  copious  information  with  respect  to  the  use  made 
of  this  story  by  the  romance-writers,  see  Liebrecht's  translations  of  Basile's  "  Pear1 
tamerone,"  ii.  264,  and  of  Dunbp's  "  His'ory  of  Literature,"  p-  516. 

t  Afanasief,  v.  p.  16. 

J  Ibid.,  iii.  p.  87. 


INTR  OD  UCTOR  Y.  51 

variants  of  this  time-honored  jest  is  quaint,  conj'uding  as 
it  does,  by  way  of  sting,  with  a  highly  popuLv  Russian 
saw.  The  wife  has  gone  to  the  seigneur  of  the  v'.ilage  and 
accused  her  husband  of  having  found  a  treasure  and  kept 
it  for  his  own  use.  The  charge  is  true,  but  ХУл  wife'  is 
induced  to  talk  such  nonsense,  and  the  husband  с  лпрЫпэ 
so  bitterly  of  her,  that  "  the  seigneur  pitied  the  TiOujik  for 
being  so  unfortunate,  so  he  set  him  at  liberty  ;  and  he  had 
him  divorced  from  his  wife  and  married  to  another,  a 
young  and  good-looking  one.  Then  the  moujik  immedi- 
ately dug  up  his  treasure  and  began  living  in  the  best 
manner  possible."  Sure  enough  the  proverb  doesn't  say 
without  reason  :  "  Women  have  long  hair  and  short  wits."* 

There  is  another  story  of  this  class  which  is  worthy  of 
being  mentioned,  as  it  illustrates  a  custom  in  which  the 
Russians  differ  from  some  other  peoples. 

A  certain  man  had  married  a  wife  who  was  so  capri- 
cious that  there  was  no  living  with  her.  After  trying  all 
sorts  of  devices  her  dejected  husband  at  last  asked  her  how 
she  had  been  brought  up,  and  learnt  that  she  had  received 
an  education  almost  entirely  German  and  French,  with 
scarcely  any  Russian  in  it ;  she  had  not  even  been  wrapped 
in  swaddling-clothes  when  a  baby,  nor  swung  in  a  liulka.  | 
Thereupon  her  husband  determined  to  remedy  the  short- 
comings of  her  early  education,  and  "  whenever  she 
showed  herself  capricious,  or  took  to  squalling,  he  im- 
mediately had  her  swaddled  and  placed  in  a  liulka,  and 
began  swinging  her  to  and  fro."  By  the  end  of  a  half 
year  she  became  "  quite  silky  " — all  her  caprices  had  been 
swung  out  of  her. 

*  Chud'isky,  No.  8.    The  proverb  is  dear  to  the  Tartars  also. 

t  Ibid.  No.  23.  The  liulka,  or  Russian  cradle,  is  suspended  and  swung,  instead 
of  being  placed  on  the  floor  and  rocked.  Russian  babies  are  usually  swaddled 
tightly,  like  American  papooses. 


62  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

But  instead  of  giving  mere  extracts  from  any  more  of 
the  numerous  stories  to  which  the  fruitful  subject  of 
woman's  caprice  has  given  rise,  we  will  quote  a  couple  of 
such  tales  at  length.  The  first  is  the  Russian  variant  of  a 
story  which  has  a  long  family  tree,  with  ramifications 
extending  over  a  great  part  of  the  world.  Dr.  Benfey  has 
devoted  to  it  no  less  than  sixteen  pages  of  his  introduction 
to  the  Panchatantra,*  tracing  it  from  its  original  Indian 
home,  and  its  subsequent  abode  in  Persia,  into  almost 
every  European  land. 

The  Bad  Wife,  f 

A  bad  wife  lived  on  the  worst  of  terms  with  her  husband,  and 
never  paid  any  attention  to  what  he  said.  If  her  husband  told 
her  to  get  up  early,  she  would  lie  in  bed  three  days  at  a  stretch 
if  he  wanted  her  to  go  to  sleep,  she  couldn't  think  of  sleeping. 
When  her  husband  asked  her  to  make  pancakes,  she  would  say: 
"  You  thief,  you  don't  deserve  a  pancake  !  " 

If  he  said: 

"  Don't  make  any  pancakes  wife,  if  I  don't  deserve  them," 
she  would  cook  a  two-gallon  pot  full,  and  say, 

"  Eat  away,  you  thief,  till  they're  all  gone  !  " 

"  Now  then,  wife,"  perhaps  he  would  say,  "  I  feel  quite  sorry 
for  you  ;  don't  go  toiling  and  moiling,  and  don't  go  out  to  the 
hay  cutting." 

"No,  no,  you  thief!"  she  would  reply,  "I  shall  go,  and  do 
you»  follow  after  me  !  " 

One  day,  after  having  had  his  trouble  and  bother  with  her 
he  went  into  the  forest  to  look  for  berries  and  distract  his  grief, 
and  he  came  to  where  there  was  a  currant  bush,  and  in  the  mid- 

*  " Panchatantra,"  1S59,  vol.  i.  §  212,  pp.  5iq-=;24.  I  gladly  avail  myself  of  this 
opportunity  of  gratefully  acknowledging  my  obligations  to  Dr.  Bcnf^y's  invaluable 
work. 

t  "  Afnnasief,  i.  No.  g.     Written  down  ip  the   Novgorod  Government.     Its  dialect 
renders  it  somewhat  difficult  to  read. 


INTRODUCTORY.  ЬЗ 

die  of  that  bush  he  saw  a  bottomless  pit.  He  looked  at  it  foi 
some  time  and  considered,  "  Why  should  I  live  in  torment  with 
a  bad  wife  ?  can't  I  put  her  into  that  pit  ?  can't  I  teach  her  a 
good  lesson  ?  " 

So  when  he  came  home,  he  said  : 

"Wife,  don't  go  into  the  woods  for  berries." 

"  Yes,  you  bugbear,  I  shall  go  !  " 

"  I've  found  a  currant  bush  ;  don't  pick  it." 

"  Yes  I  will ;  I  shall  go  and  pick  it  clean  ;  but  I  won't  give 
you  a  single  currant !  " 

The  husband  went  out,  his  wife  with  him.  He  came  to  the 
currant  bush,  and  his  wife  jumped  into  it,  crying  out  at  the  top 
her  voice  : 

"  Don't  you  come  into  the  bush,  you  thief,  or  I'll  kill  you  !  " 

And  so  she  got  into  the  middle  of  the  bush,  and  went  flop 
into  the  bottomless  pit. 

The  husband  returned  home  joyfully,  and  remained  there 
three  days ;  on  the  fourth  day  he  went  to  see  how  things  were 
going  on.  Taking  a  long  cord,  he  let  it  down  into  the  pit,  and 
out  from  thence  he  pulled  a  little  demon.  Frightened  out  of  his 
■vits,  he  was  going  to  throw  the  imp  back  again  into  the  pit, 
Hut  it  shrieked  aloud,  and  earnestly  entreated  him,  saying : 

"  Don't  send  me  back  again,  О  peasant !  let  me  go  out  into 
.he  world  !  A  bad  wife  has  come,  and  absolutely  devoured  us 
all,  pinching  us,  and  biting  us — we're  utterly  worn  out  with  it. 
I'll  do  you  a  good  turn,  if  you  will." 

So  the  peasant  let  him  go  free — at  large  in  Holy  Russia. 
Then  the  imp  said  : 

"  Now  then,  peasant,  come  along  with  me  to  the  town  of 
Vologda.  I'll  take  to  tormenting  people,  and  you  shall  cure 
them." 

Well,  the  imp  went  to  where  there  were  merchant's  wives 
and  merchant's  daughters  ;  and  when  they  were  possessed  by 
him,  they  fell  ill  and  went  crazy.  Then  the  peasant  would  go  to 
a  house  where  there  was  illness  of  this  kind,  and,  as  soon  as  he 


6i  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

entered,  out  would  go  the  enemy ;  then  there  would  be  blessing 
in  the  house,  and  everyone  would  suppose  that  the  peasant  was 
a  doctor  indeed,  and  would  give  him  money,  and  treat  him  to 
pies.  And  so  the  peasant  gained  an  incalculable  sum  of  money. 
At  last  the  demon  said  : 

"  You've  plenty  now,  peasant;  arn't  you  content?  I'm  going 
now  to  enter  into  the  Boyar's  daughter.  Mind  you  don't  go 
curing  her.     If  you  do,  I  shall  eat  you." 

The  Boyar's  daughter  fell  ill,  and  went  so  crazy  that  she 
wanted  to  eat  people.  The  Boyar  ordered  his  people  to  find  out 
the  peasant— (that  is  to  say)  to  look  for  such  and  such  a  physi- 
cian. The  peasant  came,  entered  the  house,  and  told  Boyar  to 
make  all  the  townspeople,  and  the  carriages  with  coachmen,  stand 
in  the  street  outside.  Moreover,  he  gave  orders  that  all  the 
coachmen  should  crack  their  whips  and  cry  at  the  top  of  their 
voices  :  "  The  Bad  Wife  has  come  !  the  Bad  Wife  has  come  !  " 
and  then  he  went  into  the  inner  room.  As  soon  as  he  entered 
it,  the  demon  rushed  at  him  crying,  "What  do  you  mean,  Rus- 
sian ?  what  have  you  come  here  for  ?  I'll  eat  you  !  " 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  the  peasant,  "why  I  didn't 
come  here  to  turn  you  out.  I  came,  out  of  pity  to  you,  to  say 
that  the  Bad  Wife  has  come  here." 

The  Demon  rushed  to  the  window,  stared  with  all  his  eyes, 
and  heard  everyone  shouting  at  the  top  of  his  voice  the  words, 
"The  Bad  Wife!"       . 

"  Peasant,"  cries  the  Demon,  "  wherever  can  I  take  refuge  ? 

"  Run  back  into  the  pit.     She  won't  go  there  any  more." 

The  Demon  went  back  to  the  pit — and  to  the  Bad  Wife  too. 

In  return  for  his  services,  the  Boyar  conferred  a  rich  guer- 
don on  the  peasant,  giving  him  his  daughter  to  wife,  and  present- 
ing him  with  half  his  property. 

But  the  Bad  Wife  sits  to  this  day  in  the  pit — in  Tartarus,* 

*  Tbis  story  is  known  to  the  Finns,  but  with  them  the  Russian  Demon,  (chorievtwk 
«=a  little  chart  or  devil),  has  become  the  Plague.  In  the  original  Indian  story  the  de- 
mon is  one  which  had  formerly  lived  in  a  Brahman's  house,  but  had  been  frightened 
away  by  his  cantankerous  wife-     In   the   Servian  version  (Karajich,    No.  37),  the 


INTRODUCTORY.  55 

Our  final  illustration  of  the  Skazkas  which  satirize 
women  is  the  story  of  the  Golovikha.  It  is  all  the  more 
valuable,  inasmuch  as  it  is  one  of  the  few  folk-tales  which 
throw  any  light  on  the  working  of  Russian  communal 
institutions.  The  word  Golovikha  means,  in  its  strict  sense, 
the  wife  of  a  Golova,  or  elected  chief  [Go/ov/i  =  head]  of 
a  Volost,  or  association  of  village  communities ;  but  here  it 
is  used  for  a  "  female  Go/ova,"  a  species  of  "  mayoress." 


The  Golovikha.* 

A  certain  woman  was  very  bumptious.  Her  husband  came 
from  a  village  council  one  day,  and  she  asked  him  : 

"  What  have  you  been  deciding  over  there  ?  " 

"What  have  we  been  deciding  ?  why  choosing  a  Golova." 

"  Whom  have  you  chosen  ?  " 

"No  one  as  yet." 

"  Choose  me,"  says  the  woman. 

So  as  soon  as  her  husband  went  back  to  the  council  (she  was 
a  bad  sort ;  he  wanted  to  give  her  a  lesson)  he  told  the  elders 
what  she  had  said.     They  immediately  chose  her  as  Golova. 

Well  the  woman  got  along,  settled  all  questions,  took  bribes, 
and  drank  spirits  at  the  peasant's  expense.  But  the  time  came 
to  collect  the  poll-tax.  The  Golova  couldn't  do  it,  wasn't  able 
to  collect  it  in  time.  There  came  a  Cossack,  and  asked  for  the 
Golova ;  but  the  woman  had  hidden  herself.  As  soon  as  she 
learnt  that  the  Cossack  had  come,  off  she  ran  home. 

"  Where,  oh  where  can  I  hide  myself  ? "  she  cries  to  her 
husband.  "  Husband  dear  !  tie  me  up  in  a  bag,  and  put  me  out 
tl)£re  where  the  corn-sacks  are." 

opening  consists  of  the  "  Scissors-story,"  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made. 
The  vixen  falls  into  a  hole  which  she  does  not  see,  so  bent  is  she  on  controverting  her 
husband. 

*  Afanasitf,  ii.  No.  «2.     Written  down  by  a  "  Crown  Serf,"  in  the  government  <A 
Perm. 


56  Rl  SSI  А  Л '  FOLK-  TALES. 

Now  there  were  five  sacks  of  seed-corn  outside,  so  her  hus« 
band  tied  up  the  Golova,  and  set  her  in  the  midst  of  them.  Up 
came  the  Cossack  and  said  : 

"  Ко  !  so  the  Golova's  in  hiding." 
«    Then  he  took  to  slashing  at  the  sacks  one  after  another  with 
his  whip,  and  the  woman  to  howling  at  the  pitch  of  her  voice  : 

"  Oh,  my  father  !  I  won't  be  a  Golova,  I  won't  be  a  Golova." 

At  last  the  Cossack  left  off  beating  the  sacks,  and  rode  away. 
But  the  woman  had  had  enough  of  Golova-ing ;  from  that  time 
forward  she  took  to  obeying  her  husband. 

Before  passing  on  to  another  subject,  it  may  be  advis- 
able to  quote  one  of  the  stories  in  which  the  value  of  a 
good  and  wise  wife  is  fully  acknowledged.  I  have  chosen 
for  that  purpose  one  of  the  variants  of  a  tale  from  which, 
in  all  probability,  our  own  story  of  "  Whittington  and  his 
Cat  "  has  been  derived.  With  respect  to  its  origin,  there 
can  be  very  little  doubt,  such  a  feature  as  that  of  the 
incense-burning  pointing  directly  to  a  Buddhist  source.  It 
is  called — 

The  Three  Copecks.* 

There  once  was  a  poor  little  orphan-lad  who  had  nothing  at  all 
to  live  on ;  so  he  went  to  a  rich  moujik  and  hired  himself  out  to 
him,  agreeing  to  work  for  one  copeck  a  year.  And  when  he  had 
worked  for  a  whole  year,  and  had  received  his  copeck,  he  went  to 
a  well  and  threw  it  into  the  water,  saying,  "  If  it  don't  sink,  I'll 
keep  it.  It  will  be  plain  enough  I've  served  my  master  faith- 
fully." 

But  the  copeck  sank.  Well,  he  remained  in  service  a  second 
year,  and  received  a  second  copeck.  Again  he  flung  it  into  the 
wel',  and  again  it  sank  to  the  bottom.  He  remained  a  third  year ; 
worked  and  worked,  till  the  time  came  for  payment.     Then  his 

*  Afanasicf,  viii.    No.  20.  A  copeck  is  worth  about  a  third  of  a  penny- 


INTRODUCTORY.  57 

master  gave  him  a  rouble.  "  No,"  says  the  orphan,  "  I  don't 
want  your  money ;  give  me  my  copeck."  He  got  his  copeck  and 
flung  it  into  the  well.  Lo  and  behold  !  there  were  all  three  co- 
pecks floating  on  the  surface  of  the  water.  So  he  took  them  and 
went  into  the  town. 

Now  as  he  went  along  the  street,  it  happened  that  some  small 
boys  had  got  hold  of  a  kitten  and  were  tormenting  it.  And  he 
felt  sorry  for  it,  and  said  : 

"  Let  me  have  that  kitten,  my  boys  ?  " 

"Yes,  we'll  sell  it  you." 

"  What  do  you  want  for  it  ?  " 

"  Three  copecks." 

Well  the  orphan  bought  the  kitten,  and  afterwards  hired 
himself  to  a  merchant,  to  sit  in  his  shop. 

That  merchant's  business  began  to  prosper  wonderfully.  He 
couldn't  supply  goods  fast  enough  ;  purchasers  carried  off  every- 
thing in  a  twinkling.  The  merchant  got  ready  to  go  to  sea, 
freighted  a  ship,  and  said  to  the  orphan  : 

"  Give  me  your  cat ;  maybe  it  will  catch  mice  on  board,  and 
amuse  me.:' 

"  Pray  take  it,  master !  only  if  you  lose  it,  I  shan't  let  you  off 
cheep." 

The  merchant  arrived  in  a  far  off  land,  and  put  up  at  an  inn. 
The  landlord  saw  that  he  had  a  great  deal  of  money,  so  he  gave 
him  a  bedroom  which  was  infested  by  countless  swarms  of  rats 
and  mice,  saying  to  himself,  "  If  they  should  happen  to  eat  him 
up,  his  money  will  belong  to  me."  For  in  that  country  they  knew 
nothing  about  cats,  and  the  rats  and  mice  had  completely  got  the 
upper  hand.  Well  the  merchant  took  the  cat  with  him  to  his 
room  and  went  to  bed.  Next  morning  the  landlord  came  into 
the  room.  There  was  the  merchant  alive  and  well,  holding  the 
zzt  in  his  arms,  and  stroking  its  fur ;  the  cat  was  purring  away, 
singing  its  song,  and  on  the  floor  lay  a  perfect  heap  of  dead  rats 
and  mice ! 

"  Master  merchant,  sell  me  that  beastie,"  says  the  landlord. 

"  Certainly." 

"  What  do  you  want  for  it  ?  " 


58  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

u  А  глеге  trifle.  I'll  make  the  beastie  stand  on  his  hind  legs 
while  I  hold  him  up  by  his  forelegs,  and  you  shall  pile  gold 
pieces  around  him,  so  as  just  to  hide  him — I  shall  be  content 
with  that !  " 

The  landlord  agreed  to  the  bargain.  The  merchant  gave  bim 
the  cat,  received  a  sackful  of  gold,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  settled 
his  affairs,  started  on  his  way  back.  As  he  sailed  across  the 
seas,  he  thought: 

"  Why  should  I  give  the  gold  to  that  orphan  ?  Such  a  lot  of 
money  in  return  for  a  mere  cat !  that  would  be  too  much  of  a 
good  thing.     No,  much  better  keep  it  myself." 

The  moment  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  the  sin,  all  of  a  sud- 
den there  arose  a  storm — such  a  tremendous  one  !  the  ship  was 
on  the  point  of  sinking. 

"Ah,  accursed  one  that  I  am  !  I've  been  longing  for  what 
doesn't  belong  to  me  ;  О  Lord,  forgive  me  a  sinner !  I  won't 
keep  back  a  single  copeck." 

The  moment  the  merchant  began  praying  the  winds  were 
stilled,  the  sea  became  calm,  and  the  ship  went  sailing  on  pros- 
perously to  the  quay. 

"  Hail,  master ! "  says  the  orphan.     "  But  where's  my  cat  ?  " 

"  I've  sold  it,"  answers  the  merchant ;  "  There's  your  money, 
take  it  in  full." 

The  orphan  received  the  sack  of  gold,  took  leave  of  the 
merchant,  and  went  to  the  strand,  where  the  shipmen  were. 
From  them  he  obtained  a  shipload  of  incense  in  exchange  for 
his  gold,  and  he  strewed  the  incense  along  the  strand,  and  burnt 
it  in  honor  of  God.  The  sweet  savor  spread  through  all  that 
land,  and  suddenly  an  old  man  appeared,  and  he  said  to  the 
orphan : 

"  Which  desirest  thou — riches,  or  a  good  wife  ?  " 

"  I  know  not,  old  man." 

"  Well  then,  go  afield.  Three  brothers  are  ploughing  over 
there.     Ask  them  to  tell  thee." 

The  orphan  went  afield.  He  looked,  and  saw  peasants  tilling 
the  soil. 

"  God  lend  you  aid  !  "  says  he. 


TNTROD  UCTOR  V.  59 

"  Thanks,  good  man  !  "  say  they.    "  What  dost  thou  want  ?  " 

"  An  old  man  has  sent  me  here,  and  told  me  to  ask  you  which 
of  the  two  I  shall  wish  for — riches  or  a  good  wife  ?  " 

"  Ask  our  elder  brother  ;  he's  sitting  in  that  cart  there." 

The  orphan  went  to  the  cart  and  saw  a  little  boy — one  that 
seemed  about  three  years  old. 

"  Can  this  be  their  elder  brother  ?  "  thought  he — however  he 
asked  him : 

'':  Which  dost  thou  tell  me  to  choose — riches,  or  a  good  wife  ?  " 

"  Choose  the  good  wife." 

So  the  orphan  returned  to  the  old  man. 

"  I'm  told  to  ask  for  the  wife,"  says  he. 

"  That's  all  right !  "  said  the  old  man,  and  disappeared  from 
sight.  The  orphan  looked  round ;  by  his  side  stood  a  beautiful 
woman. 

"  Hail,  good  youth  !  "  says  she.  "  I  am  thy  wife  ;  let  us  go 
and  seek  a  place  where  we  may  live."  * 

One  of  the  sins  to  which  the  Popular  Tale  shows  itself 
most  hostile  is  that  of  avarice.  The  folk-tales  of  all  lands 
delight  to  gird  at  misers  and  skinflints,  to  place  them  in 
unpleasant  positions,  and  to  gloat  over  the  sufferings  wdiich 
attend  their  death  and  embitter  their  ghostly  existence. 
As  a  specimen  of  the  manner  in  which  the  humor  of  the 
Russian  peasant  has  manipulated  the  stories  of  this  class, 
most  of  which  probably  reached  him  from  the  East,  we 
may  take  the  following  tale  of — 

*  The  story  is  continued  very  little  further  by  Afanasief,  its  conclusion  being  the 
same  as  that  of  "  The  Wise  Wife,"  in  Book  vii.  No.  22,  a  tale  of  magic.  For  a  Se-vian 
irersion  of  the  tale  see  Vuk  Karajich,  No.  7. 


60  R С  SSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 


The  Miser.* 

There  once  was  a  rich  merchant  named  Marko — a  stingier  fel> 
low  never  lived !  One  day  he  went  out  for  a  stroll.  As  he  went 
along  the  road  he  saw  a  beggar — an  old  man,  who  sat  there  ask- 
ing for  alms — "  Please  to  give,  О  ye  Orthodox,  for  Christ's 
sake ! " 

Marko  the  Rich  passed  by.  Just  at  that  time  there  came  up 
behind  him  a  poor  moujik,  who  felt  sorry  for  the  beggar,  and  gave 
him  a  copeck.  The  rich  man  seemed  to  feel  ashamed,  for  he 
stopped  and  said  to  the  moujik : 

"Harkye,  neighbor,  lend  me  a  copeck.  I  want  to  give  that 
poor  man  something,  but  I've  no  small  change." 

The  moujik  gave  him  one,  and  asked  when  he  should  come 
for  his  money.  "Come  to-morrow,"  was  the  reply.  Well  next 
day  the  poor  man  went  to  the  rich  man's  to  get  his  copeck.  He 
entered  his  spacious  court-yard  and  asked  : 

"  Is  Marko  the  Rich  at  home  ?  " 

"Yes.     What  do  you  want  ?  "  replied  Marko. 

"  I've  come  for  my  copeck." 

"Ah,  brother!  come  again.   Really  I've  no  change  just  now." 

The  poor  man  made  his  bow  and  went  away. 

"  I'll  come  to-morrow,"  said  he. 

On  the  morrow  he  came  again,  but  it  was  just  the  same  story 
as  before. 

"I  haven't  a  single  copper.  If  you  like  to  change  me  a  note 
for  a  hundred — No  ?  well  then  come  again  in  a  fortnight." 

At  the  end  of  the  fortnight  the  poor  man  came  again,  but 
Marko  the  Rich  saw  him  from  the  window,  and  said  to  his  wife  : 

"  Harkye,  wife  !  I'll  strip  myself  naked  and  lie  down  under 
the  holy  pictures.  Cover  me  up  with  a  cloth,  and  sit  down  and 
cry,  just  as  you  would  over  a  corpse.  When  the  moujik  comes 
for  his  money,  tell  him  I  died  this  morning." 

Well  the  wife  did  everything  exactly  as  her  husband  directed 

*  Afannsief,  v.  No.  3.     From  the  Novgorod  Government. 


INTRO  D  UCTOR  Y.  0 1 

her.  While  she  was  sitting  there  drowned  in  bitter  tears,  the 
moujik  came  into  the  room. 

"  What  do  you  want  ?  "  says  she. 

"  The  money  Marko  the  Rich  owes  me,"  answers  the  poor 
man. 

"  Ah,  moujik.  Marko  the  Rich  has  wished  us  farewell ;  *  he's 
only  just  dead." 

"The  kingdom  of  heaven  be  his  !  If  you'll  allow  me;  mis- 
tress, in  return  for  my  copeck  I'll  do  him  a  last  service — just 
give  his  mortal  remains  a  wash." 

So  saying  he  laid  hold  of  a  pot  full  of  boiling  water  and  began 
pouring  its  scalding  contents  over  Marko  the  Rich.  Marko,  hia 
brows  knit,  his  legs  contorted,  was  scarcely  able  to  hold  out.  f 

"Writhe  away  or  not  as  you  please,"  thought  the  poor  man, 
"but  pay  me  my  copeck!  " 

When  he  had  washed  the  body,  and  laid  it  out  properly,  he 
said: 

"  Now  then,  mistress,  buy  a  coffin  and  have  it  taken  into  the 
church ;  I'll  go  and  read  psalms  over  it." 

So  Marko  the  Rich  was  put  in  a  coffin  and  take  a  into  the 
church,  and  the  moujik  began  reading  psalms  over  him.  The 
darkness  of  night  came  on.  All  of  a  sudden  a  window  opened, 
and  a  party  of  robbers  crept  through  it  into  the  church.  The 
moujik  hid  himself  behind  the  altar.  As  soon  as  the  robbers  had 
come  in  they  began  dividing  their  booty,  and  after  everything 
else  was  shared  there  remained  over  and  above  a  golden  sabre 
— each  one  laid  hold  of  it  for  himself,  no  one  would  give  up  his 
claim  to  it.     Out  jumped  the  poor  man,  crying  : 

"  What's  the  good  of  disputing  that  way  ?  Let  the  sabre 
belong  to  him  who  will  cut  this  corpse's  head  off ! " 

Up  jumped  Marko  the  Rich  like  a  madman.     The  robbers 

*  Literally,  "  has  bid  to  live  long,"  a  conventional  euphemism  for  "  has  died." 
"  Remember  what  his  name  was,"  is  sometimes  added. 

t  It  will  be  observed  that  the  miser  holds  out  against  tire  pain  which  the  scalderf 
demon  was  unable  to  bear.     See  above,  p.  21. 


62  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

were  frightened  out  of  their  wits,  flung  away  their  spoil  and 
scampered  off. 

"  Here,  Moujik,"  says  Marko,  "let's  divide  the  money." 

They  divided  it  equally  between  them :  each  of  the  shares 
was  a  large  one. 

"  But  how  about  the  copeck  ?  "  asks  the  poor  man. 

"Ah,  brother!"  replies  Marko,  "surely  you  can  see  I've  got 
no  change  !  " 

And  so  Marko  the  Rich  never  paid  the  copeck  after  all. 

We  may  take  next  the  large  class  of  stories  about 
simpletons,  so  dear  to  the  public  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
In  the  Skazkas  a  simpleton  is  known  as  a  durak,  a  word 
which  admits  of  a  variety  of  explanations.  Sometimes  it 
means  an  idiot,  sometimes  a  fool  in  the  sense  of  a  jester. 
In  the  stones  of  village  life  its  signification  is  generally 
that  of  a  "  ninny ; "  in  the  "  fairy  stones  "  it  is  frequently 
applied  to  the  youngest  of  the  well-known  "  Three  Broth- 
ers," the  "  Boots  "  of  the  family  as  Dr.  Dasent  has  called 
him.  In  the  latter  case,  of  course,  the  hero's  durachesivc, 
or  foolishness,  is  purely  subjective.  It  exists  only  in  the 
false  conceptions  of  his  character  which  his  family  or  his 
neighbors  have  formed.*  But  the  durak  of  the  following 
tale  is  represented  as  being  really  "  daft."  The  story 
begins  with  one  of  the  conventional  openings  of  the 
Skazka — "  In  a  certain  tsarstvo,  in_a  certain  gosudarstvo" — ■ 
but  the  two  synonyms  for  "  kingdom  "  or  "  state  "  are  used 
only  becau  зе  they  rhyme. 

The  Fool  and  the  Birch-Tree,  f 

In  a  certain  country  there  once  lived  an  old  man  who  had  three 
sons.     Two  of  them  had  their  wits  about  them,  but  the  third  was 

*  Professor  de  Gubematis  remarks  that  he  may  sometimes  be  called  "  the  first 
Brutus  of  popular  tradition."     "  Zoological  Mythology,"  vol.  i-,  p.  199. 
t  Afanasief,  v.  No.  52. 


INTROD  UCTOR  V.  63 

a  fool.  The  old  man  died  and  his  sons  divided  his  property 
among  themselves  by  lot.  The  sharp-witted  ones  got  plenty  of 
all  sorts  of  good  things,  but  nothing  fell  to  the  share  of  the  Sim- 
pleton but  one  ox — and  that  such  a  skinny  one  ! 

Well,  fair-time  came  round,  and  the  clever  brothers  got  ready 
to  go  and  transact  business.     The  Simpleton  saw  this,  and  said  : 

"  I'll  go,  too,  brothers,  and  take  my  ox  for  sale." 

So  he  fastened  a  cord  to  the  horn  of  the  ox  and  drove  it  to 
the  town.  On  his  way  he  happened  to  pass  through  a  forest,  and 
in  the  forest  there  stood  an  old  withered  Birch-tree.  Whenever 
the  wind  blew  the  Birch-tree  creaked. 

"What  is  the  Birch  creaking  about?"  thinks  the  Simpleton. 
"  Surely  it  must  be  bargaining  for  my  ox  ?  Well,"  says  he,  "  If 
you  want  to  buy  it,  why  buy  it.  I'm  not  against  selling  it.  The 
price  of  the  ox  is  twenty  roubles.  I  can't  take  less.  Out  with 
the  money! " 

The  Birch  made  no  reply,  only  went  on  creaking.  But  the 
Simpleton  fancied  that  it  was  asking  for  the  ox  on  credit.  "  Very 
good,"  says  he,  "  I'll  wait  till  to-morrow  !  "  He  tied  the  ox  to  the 
Birch,  took  leave  of  the  tree,  and  went  home.  Presently  in  came 
the  clever  brothers,  and  began  questioning  him: 

"Well,  Simpleton!  sold  your  ox  ?  " 

"I've  sold  it." 

"  For  how  much  ?  " 

"  For  twenty  roubles." 

"  Where's  the  money  ?  " 

"  I  haven't  received  the  money  yet.  It  was  settled  I  should 
go  for  it  to-morrow." 

"  There's  simplicity  for  you  !  "  say  they. 

Early  next  morning  the  Simpleton  got  up,  dressed  himself, 
and  went  to  the  Birch-tree  for  his  money.  He  reached  the  wood  ; 
there  stood  the  Birch,  waving  in  the  wind,  but  the  ox  was  not  to 
be  seen.     During  the  night  the  wolves  had  eaten  it. 

"  Now,  then,  neighbor!  "  he  exclaimed,  "pay  me  my  money. 
You  promised  you'd  pay  me  to-day." 


U  R  US  SI  А  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

The  wind  blew,  the  Birch  creaked,  and  the  Simpleton  cried: 

"  What  a  liar  you  are !  Yesterday  you  kept  saying,  '  I'll  pay 
you  to-rr  orrow,'  and  now  you  make  just  the  same  promise. 
Well,  so  be  it,  I'll  wait  one  day  more,  but  not  a  bit  longer.  I  want 
the  money  myself." 

When  he  returned  home,  his  brothers  again  questioned  him 
closely : 

"  Have  you  got  your  money  ?  " 

"  No,  brothers  ;  I've  got  to  wait  for  my  money  again.' 

"  Whom  have  you  sold  it  to  ?  " 

"To  the  withered  Birch-tree  in  the  forest." 

"Oh,  what  an  idiot!" 

On  the  third  day  the  Simpleton  took  his  hatchet  and  went  to 
the  forest.  Arriving  there,  he  demanded  his  money ;  but  the 
Birch-tree  only  creaked  and  creaked.  "No,  no,  neighbor!" 
says  he.  "  If  you're  always  going  to  treat  me  to  promises,  * 
there'll  be  no  getting  anything  out  of  you.  I  don't  like  such 
joking  ;    I'll  pay  you  out  well  for  it !  " 

With  that  he  pitched  into  it  with  his  hatchet,  so  that  its  chips 
flew  about  in  all  directions.  Now,  in  that  Birch-tree  there  was 
a  hollow,  and  in  that  hollow  some  robbers  had  hidden  a  pot  full 
of  gold.  The  tree  split  asunder,  and  the  Simpleton  caught  sight 
of  the  gold.  He  took  as  much  of  it  as  the  skirts  of  his  caftan 
would  hold,  and  toiled  home  with  it.  There  he  showed  his 
brothers  what  he  had  brought. 

"  Where  did  you  get  such  a  lot,  Simpleton  ?  "  said  they. 

"  A  neighbor  gave  it  me  for  my  ox.  But  this  isn't  anything 
like  the  whole  of  it ;  a  good  half  of  it  I  didn't  bring  home  with 
me  !     Come  along,  brothers,  let's  get  the  rest !  " 

Well,  they  went  into  the  forest,  secured  the  money,  and  car- 
riedithome. 

"  Now  mind,  Simpleton,"  say  the  sensible  brothers,  "  don't 
tell  anyone  that  we've  such  a  lot  of  gold." 

*  Zaz>trakami  fedchivat  =  to  dupe  ;  zavtra  =  to-morrow  ;  zavtrak  ■■ 
breakfast. 


INTROD  UCTOR  Y.  65 

"  Never  fear,  I  won't  tell  a  soul !  " 

All  of  a  sudden  they  run  up  against  a  Diachok,*  and  6ays 
he  :— 

"  What's  that,  brothers,  you're  bringing  from  the  forest  ?  " 

The  sharp  ones  replied,  "  Mushrooms."  But  the  Simpleton 
contradicted  them,  saying : 

"  They're  telling  lies  !  we're  carrying  money ;  here,  just  take 
a  look  at  it." 

The  Diachok  uttered  such  an  "  Oh  !  " — then  he  flung  himself 
on  the  gold,  and  began  seizing  handfuls  of  it  and  stuffing  them 
into  his  pocket.  The  Simpleton  grew  angry,  dealt  him  a  blow 
with  his  hatchet,  and  struck  him  dead. 

"Heigh,  Simpleton  !  what  have  you  been  and  done  !  "  cried 
his  brothers.  "  You're  a  lost  man,  and  you'll  be  the  cause  of  our 
destruction,  too  !   Wherever  shall  we  put  the  dead  body  ?  " 

They  thought  and  thought,  and  at  last  they  dragged  it  to  an 
empty  cellar  and  flung  it  in  there.  But  later  on  in  the  evening 
the  eldest  brother  said  to  the  second  one  : — 

"  This  piece  of  work  is  sure  to  turn  out  badly.  When  they 
begin  looking  for  the  Diachok,  you'll  see  that  Simpleton  will  tell 
them  everything.  Let's  kill  a  goat  and  bury  it  in  the  cellar,  and 
hide  the  body  of  the  dead  man  in  some  other  place." 

Well,  they  waited  till  the  dead  of  night ;  then  they  killed  a 
goat  and  flung  it  into  the  cellar,  but  they  carried  the  Diachok  to 
another  place  and  there  hid  him  in  the  ground.  Several  days 
passed,  and  then  people  began  looking  everywhere  for  the  Dia- 
chok, asking  everyone  about  him. 

"  What  do  you  want  him  for  ?  "  said  the  Simpleton,  when  he 
was  asked.  "  I  killed  him  some  time  ago  with  my  hatchet,  and 
my  brothers  carried  him  into  the  cellar." 

Straightway  they  laid  hands  on  the  Simpleton,  crying,  "Take 
us  there  and  show  him  to  us." 

*  One  of  the  inferior  members  of  the  Russian  clerical  body,  though  not  of  the 
clergy.  Butin  one  of  the  variants  of  the  story  it  is  a  "  pope  "  or  priest,  who  appears, 
and  he  immediately  claims  a  share  in  the  spoil.  Whereupon  the  Simpleton  makes  use 
of  his  hatchet.  Priests  are  often  nicknamed  goats  by  the  Russian  peasantry,  perhap» 
on  account  of  their  long  beards. 

5 


66  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

The  Simpleton  went  down  into  the  cellar,  got  hold  of  the 
goat's  head,  and  asked : — 

"  Was  your  Diachok  dark-haired  ?  " 

"  He  was." 

"  And  had  he  a  beard  ?  " 

"Yes,  he'd  a  beard." 

"  And  horns  ?  " 

"  What  horns  are  you  talking  about,  Simpleton  ?  " 

"Well,  see  for  yourselves,"  said  he,  tossing  up  the  head  tc 
them.-  They  looked,  saw  it  was  a  goat's,  spat  in  the  Simpleton's 
face,  and  went  their  ways  home. 

One  of  the  most  popular  simpleton-tales  in  the  world  is 
that  of  the  fond  parents  who  harrow  their  feelings  by  con- 
juring up  the  misfortunes  which  may  possibly  await  their 
as  yet  unborn  grandchildren.  In  Scotland  it  is  told,  in  a 
slightly  different  form,  of  two  old  maids  who  were  once 
found  bathed  in  tears,  and  who  were  obliged  to  confess  that 
they  had  been  day-dreaming  and  supposing — if  they  had 
been  married,  and  one  had  had  a  boy  and  the  other  a  girl ; 
and  if  the  children,  when  they  grew  up,  had  married,  and 
had  had  a  little  child  ;  and  if  it  had  tumbled  out  of  the  win- 
dow and  been  killed — what  a  dreadful  thing  it  would  have 
been.  At  which  terrible  idea  they  both  gave  way  to  not 
unnatural  tears.  In  one  of  its  Russian  forms,  it  is  told  of 
the  old  parents  of  a  boy  named  Lutonya,  who  weep  over 
the  hypothetical  death  of  an  imaginary  grandchild,  think- 
ing how  sad  it  would  have  been  if  a  log  which  the  old 
woman  has  dropped  had  killed  that  as  yet  merely  potential 
infant.  The  parent's  grief  appears  to  Lutonya  so  uncalled 
for  that  he  leaves  home,  declaring  that  he  will  not  return 
until  he  has  found  people  more  foolish  than  they.  He 
travels  long  and  far,  and  witnesses  several  foolish  doings, 


TNTROD  UCTOR  Y.  67 

most  of  which  are  familiar  to  us.  In  one  place,  a  cow  is 
being  hoisted  on  to  a  roof  in  order  that  it  may  eat  the  grass 
growing  thereon  ;  in  another  a  horse  is  being  inserted  into 
its  collar  by  sheer  force ;  in  a  third,  a  woman  is  fetching 
milk  from  the  cellar,  a  spoonful  at  a  time.  But  the  story 
comes  to  an  end  before  its  hero  has  discovered  the  surpass- 
ing stupidity  of  which  he  is  in  quest.  In  another  Russian 
story  of  a  similar  nature  Lutonya  goes  from  home  in  search 
of  some  one  more  foolish  than  his  mother,  who  has  been 
tricked  by  a  cunning  sharper.  First  he  finds  carpenters 
attempting  to  stretch  a  beam  which  is  not  long  enough,  and 
earns  their  gratitude  by  showing  them  how  to  add  a  piece 
to  it.  Then  he  comes  to  a  place  where  sickles  are  unknown, 
and  harvesters  are  in  the  habit  of  biting  off  the  ears  of 
corn,  so  he  makes  a  sickle  for  them,  thrusts  it  into  a  sheaf 
and  leaves  it  there.  They  take  it  for  a  monstrous  worm, 
tie  a  cord  to  it,  and  drag  it  away  to  the  bank  of  the  river. 
There  they  fasten  one  of  their  number  to  a  log  and  set  him 
afloat,  giving  him  the  end  of  the  cord,  in  order  that  he  may 
drag  the  "  worm  "  after  him  into  the  water.  TJie  log  turns 
over,  and  the  moujik  with  it,  so  that  his  head  is  under  water 
while  his  legs  appear  above  it.  "  Why,  brother  !  "  they  call 
to  him  from  the  bank,  "  why  are  you  so  particular  about 
your  leggings  ?  If  they  do  get  wet,  you  can  dry  them  at 
the  fire."  But  he  makes  no  reply,  only  drowns.  Finally 
Lutonya  meets  the  counterpart  of  the  well-known  Irishman 
who,  when  counting  the  party  to  which  he  belongs,  always 
forgets  to  count  himself,  and  so  gets  into  numerical  difncul 
ties.     After  which  he  returns  home.* 

*  Afanasief,  ii.  No.  8,  v.  No.  5.  See  also  Khudyakof,  No.  76.  Cf.  Grimm,  No. 
34,  "  Die  kluge  Else."  Haltrich,  No.  66-  Asbjbrnsen  and  Мое,  No.  10.  (Daseiit, 
No.  24,  "  Not  a  Pin  to  choose  between  them.") 


68  R USSIA N  FOLK- ТА L ES. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  examples  of  this  style 
of  humor — to  find  in  the  folk-tales  current  all  over  Russia 
the  equivalents  of  our  own  facetious  narratives  about  the 
wise  men  of  Gotham,  the  old  woman  whose  petticoats  were 
cut  short  by  the  pedlar  whose  name  was  Stout,  and  a 
number  of  other  inhabitants  of  Fool-land,  to  whom  the 
heart  of  childhood  is  still  closely  attached,  and  also  of  the 
exaggeration-stories,  the  German  Liigenmakrchen,  on  which 
was  founded  the  narrative  of  Baron  Munchausen's  sur- 
prising adventures.  But  instead  of  doing  this,  before 
passing  on  to  the  more  important  groups  of  the  Skazkas, 
I  will  quote,  as  this  chapter's  final  illustrations  of  the 
Russian  story-teller's  art;  an  "  animal  story  "  and  a  "  legend." 
Here  is  the  former  : — 

The  Mizgir.* 

In  the  olden  years,  long  long  ago,  with  the  spring-tide  fair  and 
the  summer's  heat  there  came  on  the  world  distress  and  shame. 
For  gnats  and  flies  began  to  swarm,  biting  folks  and  letting 
their  warm  blood  flow. 

Then  the  Spider  \  appeared,  the  hero  bold,  who,  with  wav- 
ing arms,  weaved  webs  around  the  highways  and  byways  in 
which  the  gnats  and  flies  were  most  to  be  found. 

A  ghastly  Gadfly,  coming  that  way,  stumbled  straight  into 
the  Spider's  snare.  The  Spider,  tightly  squeezing  her  throat, 
prepared  to  put  her  out  of  the  world.  From  the  Spider  the 
Gadfly  mercy  sought. 

"  Good  father  Spider !  please  not  to  kill  me.  I've  ever  so 
many  little  ones.  Without  me  they'll  be  orphans  left,  and  from 
door  to  door  have  to  beg  their  bread  and  squabble  with  dogs." 

*  Afanasief,  ii.  No.  5.  Written  down  by  a  crown-peasant  in  the  government  oJ 
Perm. 

t  Mizgir,  a  venomous  spider,  like  the  Tarantula,  found  in  the  Kirghiz  Steppes. 


INTRO  D  UCTOR  V.  63 

Well,  the  Spider  released  her.  Away  she  flew,  and  every- 
where humming  and  buzzing  about,  told  the  flies  and  gnats  of 
what  had  occurred. 

"  Ho,  ye  gnats  and  flies  !  Meet  here  beneath  this  ash-tree's 
roots.  A  spider  has  come,  and,  with  waving  of  arms  and  weav- 
ing of  nets,  has  set  his  snares  in  all  the  ways  to  which  the  flies 
and  gnats  resort.     He'll  catch  them,  every  single  one  !  " 

They  flew  to  the  spot ;  beneath  the  ash-tree's  roots  they  hid, 
and  lay  there  as  though  they  were  dead.  The  Spider  came, 
and  there  he  found  a  cricket,  a  beetle,  and  a  bug. 

"  О  Cricket ! "  he  cried,  "  upon  this  mound  sit  and  take 
snuff !  Beetle,  do  thou  beat  a  drum.  And  do  thou  crawl,  О 
Bug,  the  bun-like,  beneath  the  ash,  and  spread  abroad  this  news 
of  me,  the  Spider,  the  wrestler,  the  hero  bold — that  the  Spider, 
the  wrestler,  the  hero  bold,  no  longer  in  the  world  exists  ;  that 
they  have  sent  him  to  Kazan ;  that  in  Kazan,  upon  a  block, 
they've  chopped  his  head  off,  and  the  block  destroyed." 

On  the  mound  sat  the  Cricket  and  took  snuff.  The  Beetk. 
smote  upon  the  drum.  The  Bug  crawled  in  among  the  ash-tree'w 
roots,  and  cried  : — 

"  Why  have  ye  fallen  ?  Wherefore  as  in  death  do  ye  lit 
here  ?  Truly  no  longer  lives  the  Spider,  the  wrestler,  the  hero 
bold.  They've  sent  him  to  Kazan  and  in  Kazan  they've  chopped 
his  head  off  on  a  block,  and  afterwards  destroyed  the  block." 

The  gnats  and  flies  grew  blithe  and  merry.  Thrice  they 
crossed  themselves,  then  out  they  flew — and  straight  into  the 
Spider's  snares.     Said  he  : — 

"  But  seldom  do  ye  come  !  I  would  that  ye  would  far  more 
often  come  to  visit  me  !  to  quaff  my  wine  and  beer,  and  pay  me 
tribute  ! "  * 

*  In  another  story  bearing  the  same  title  (v.  39)  the  spider  lies  on  its  back  await» 
ing  its  prey.  Up  comes  "  tlie  honorable  widow,"  the  wasp,  and  falls  straight  into  the 
trap.  The  spider  beheads  her.  Then  the  gnats  and  flies  assemble,  perform  a  funeral 
service  over  her  remains,  and  carry  them  off  on  their  shoulders  to  the  village  of 
Komarovo  (komar  =  gnat).  For  specimens  of  the  Russian  "Beast-Epos"  the 
reader  is  referred  (as  I  have  stated  in  the  preface)  to  Professor  de  Gubernatis's 
"  Zoological  Mythology." 


70  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

This  story  is  specially  interesting  in  the  original,  in- 
asmuch as  it  is  rhymed  throughout,  although  printed  as 
prose.  A  kind  of  lilt  is  perceptible  in  many  of  the 
Skazkas,  and  traces  of  rhyme  are  often  to  be  detected  in 
them,  but  "  The  Mizgir's  "  mould  is  different  from  theirs. 
Many  stories  also  exist  in  an  artificially  versified  form,  but 
their  movement  differs  entirely  from  that  of  the  naturally 
cadenced  periods  of  the  ordinary  Skazka,  or  of  such 
rhymed  prose  as  that  of  "  The  Mizgir." 

The  following  legend  is  not  altogether  new  in  "  mo- 
tive," but  a  certain  freshness  is  lent  to  it  by  its  simple 
style,  its  unstrained  humor,  and  its  genial  tone. 

The  Smith  and  the  Demon.* 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  Smith,  and  he  had  one  son,  a 
sharp,  smart,  six-year-old  boy.  One  day  the  old  man  went  to 
church,  and  as  he  stood  before  a  picture  of  the  Last  Judgment 
he  saw  a  Demon  painted  there — such  a  terrible  one  ! — black,  with 
horns  and  a  tail. 

"  О  my  !  "  says  he  to  himself.  "  Suppose  I  get  just  such 
another  painted  for  the  smithy.  So  he  hired  an  artist,  and 
ordered  him  to  paint  on  the  door  of  the  smithy  exactly  such 
another  demon  as  he  had  seen  in  the  church.  The  artist  painted 
it.  Thenceforward  the  old  man,  every  time  he  entered  the 
smithy,  always  looked  at  the  Demon  and  said,  "  Good  morning, 
fellow-countryman  ! "  And  then  he  would  lay  the  fire  in  the 
furnace  and  begin  his  work. 

Well,  the  Smith  lived  in  good  accord  with  the  Demon  for 
some  ten  years.     Then  he  fell  ill  and  died.     His  son  succeeded 

*  Afanasief,  "  Legendui,"  No.  31.  Taken  from  Dahl's  co'lection.  Some  remarks 
on  the  Russian  "  legends"  are  given  in  Chap.  VI. 


INTRODUCTORY.  71 

to  his  place  as  head  of  the  household,  and  took  the  smithy  into 
his  own  hands.  But  he  was  not  disposed  to  show  attention  to 
the  Demon  as  the  old  man  had  done.  When  he  went  into  the 
smithy  in  the  morning,  he  never  said  "  Good  morrow  "  to  him ; 
instead  of  offering  him  a  kindly  word,  he  took  the  biggest  ham- 
mer he  had  handy,  and  thumped  the  Demon  with  it  three  times 
right  on  the  forehead,  and  then  he  would  go  to  his  work.  And 
when  one  of  God's  holy  days  came  round,  he  would  go  to  church 
and  offer  each  saint  a  taper ;  but  he  would  go  up  to  the  Demon 
and  spit  in  his  face.  Thus  three  years  went  by,  he  all  the 
while  favoring  the  Evil  One  every  morning  either  with  a  spitting 
or  with  a  hammering.  The  Demon  endured  it  and  endured  it, 
and  at  last  found  it  past  all  endurance.  It  was  too  much  for 
him. 

"  I've  had  quite  enough  of  this  insolence  from  him  !  "  thinks 
he.  "  Suppose  I  make  use  of  a  little  diplomacy,  and  play  him 
some  sort  of  a  trick  !  " 

So  the  Demon  took  the  form  of  a  youth,  and  went  to  the 
smithy. 

"  Good  day,  uncle  !  "  says  he. 

"  Good  day  !  " 

"  What  should  you  say,  uncle,  to  taking  me  as  an  appren- 
tice ?  At  all  events,  I  could  carry  fuel  for  you,  and  blow  the 
bellows." 

The  Smith  liked  the  idea.  "Why  shouldn't  I  ? "  he  replied. 
"  Two  are  better  than  one." 

The  Demon  began  to  learn  his  trade ;  at  the  end  of  a  month 
he  knew  more  about  smith's  work  than  his  master  did  himself, 
was  able  to  do  everything  that  his  master  couldn't  do.  It  was 
a  real  pleasure  to  look  at  him  !  There's  no  describing  how 
satisfied  his  master  was  with  him,  how  fond  he  got  of  him. 
Sometimes  the  master  didn't  go  into  the  smithy  at  all  himself, 
but  trusted  entirely  to  his  journeyman,  who  had  complete  charge 
of  everything. 

Well,  it  happened  one  day  that  the  master  was  not  at  home, 
and  the  journeyman  was  left  all  by  himself  in  the  smithy.  Pres- 


72  Л USSIA N  FOLK- ТА LES. 

ently  he  saw  an  old  lady*  dnving  along  the  street  in  hei 
carriage,  whereupon  he  popped  his  head  out  of  doors  and  began 
shouting  : — 

"  Heigh,  sirs  !  Бе  so  good  as  to  step  in  here  !  We've 
opened  a  new  business  here ;  we  turn  old  folks  into  young 
ones." 

Out  of  her  carriage  jumped  the  lady  in  a  trice,  and  ran  into 
the  smithy. 

"  What's  that  you're  bragging  about  ?  Do  you  mean  to  say 
it's  true  ?     Can  you  really  do  it?  "  she  asked  the  youth. 

"  We  haven't  got  to  learn  our  business ! "  answered  the 
Demon.  "  If  I  hadn't  been  able  to  do  it,  I  wouldn't  have  invited 
people  to  try." 

"  And  how  much  does  it  cost  ?  "  asked  the  lady. 

"  Five  hundred  roubles  altogether." 

"  Well,  then,  there's  your  money ;  make  a  young  woman  of 
me." 

The  Demon  took  the  money;  then  he  sent  the  lady's  coach- 
man into  the  village. 

"  Go,"  says  he,  "  and  bring  me  here  two  buckets  full  of 
milk." 

After  that  he  took  a  pair  of  tongs,  caught  hold  of  the  lady 
by  the  feet,  flung  her  into  the  furnace,  and  burnt  her  up ;  noth- 
ing was  left  of  her  but  her  bare  bones. 

When  the  buckets  of  milk  were  brought,  he  emptied  them 
into  a  large  tub,  then  he  collected  all  the  bones  and  flung  them 
into  the  milk.  Just  fancy  !  at  the  end  of  about  three  minutes 
the  lady  emerged  from  the  milk — alive,  and  young,  and  beauti- 
ful! 

Well,  she  got  into  her  carriage  and  drove  home.  There  she 
went  straight  to  her  husband,  and  he  stared  hard  at  her,  but 
didn't  know  she  was  his  wife. 

"What  are  you  staring  at?"  says  the  lady.  "  I'm  young  and 
elegant,  you  see,  and  I  don't  want  to  have  an  old  husband  !  Be 
off  at  once  to  the  smithy,  and  get  them  to  make  you  young  ;  if 
you  don't,  I  won't  so  much  as  acknowledge  you  !  " 

*  Baruinya,  the  wife  of  a  barin  or  seigneur. 


INTRODUCTORY.  73 

There  was  no  help  for  it ;  off  set  the  seigneur.  But  by  that 
time  the  Smith  had  returned  home,  and  had  gone  into  the 
smithy.  He  looked  about ;  the  journeyman  wasn't  to  be  seen. 
He  searched  and  searched,  he  enquired  and  enquired,  never  a 
thing  came  of  it ;  not  even  a  trace  of  the  youth  could  be  found. 
He  took  to  his  work  by  himself,  and  was  hammering  away, 
when  at  that  moment  up  drove  the  seigneur,  and  walked  straight 
into  the  smithy. 

"  Make  a  young  man  of  me,"  says  he. 

"  Are  you  in  your  right  mind,  Barin  ?  How  can  one  make  a 
young  man  of  you  ?  " 

"  Come,  now.!  you  know  all  about  that." 

"  I  know  nothing  of  the  kind." 

"You  lie,  you  scoundrel!  Since  you  made  my  old  woman 
young,  make  me  young  too  ;  otherwise,  there  will  be  no  living 
with  her  for  me." 

"  Why  I  haven't  so  much  as  seen  your  good  lady." 

"  Your  journeyman  saw  her,  and  that's  just  the  same  thing. 
If  he  knew  how  to  do  the  job,  surely  you,  an  old  hand,  must 
have  learnt  how  to  do  it  long  ago.  Come,  now,  set  to  work  at 
once.  If  you  don't,  it  will  be  the  worse  for  you.  I'll  have  you 
rubbed  down  with  a  birch-tree  towel." 

The  Smith  was  compelled  to  try  his  hand  at  transforming 
the  seigneur.  He  held  a  private  conversation  with  the  coach- 
man as  to  how  his  journeyman  had  set  to  work  with  the  lady, 
and  what  he  had  done  to  her,  and  then  he  thought : — 

"  So  be  it!  I'll  do  the  same.  If  I  fall  on  my  feet,  good  ;  if 
I  don't,  well,  I  must  suffer  all  the  same  !  " 

So  he  set  to  work  at  once,  stripped  the  seigneur  naked,  laid 
hold  of  him  by  the  legs  with  the  tongs,  popped  him  into  the 
furnace,  and  began  blowing  the  bellows.  After  he  had  burnt 
him  to  a  cinder,  he  collected  his  remains,  flung  them  into  the 
milk,  and  then  waited  to  see  how  soon  a  youthful  seigneur 
would  jump  out  of  it.  He  waited  one  hour,  two  hours.  But 
nothing  came  of  it.  He  made  a  search  in  the  tub.  There  was 
nothing  in  it  but  bones,  and  those  charred  ones. 


74  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Just  then  the  lady  sent  messengers  to  the  smithy,  to  ask 
whether  the  seigneur  would  soon  be  ready.  The  poor  Smith 
had  to  reply  that  the  seigneur  was  no  more. 

When  the  lady  heard  that  the  Smith  had  only  turned  hei 
husband  into  a  cinder,  instead  of  making  him  young,  she  was 
tremendously  angry,  and  she  called  together  her  trusty  servants, 
and  ordered  them  to  drag  him  to  the  gallows.  No  sooner  said 
than  done.  Her  servants  ran  to  the  Smith's  house,  laid  hold  of 
him,  tied  his  hands  together,  and  dragged  him  off  to  the  gal- 
lows. All  of  a  sudden  there  came  up  with  them  the  youngster 
who  used  to  live  with  the  Smith  as  his  journeyman,  who  asked 
him : — 

"  Where  are  they  taking  you,  master  ?  " 

"They're  going  to  hang  me,"  replied  the  Smith,  and  straight- 
way related  all  that  had  happened  to  him. 

"  Well,  uncle  !  "  said  the  Demon,  "  swear  that  you  will  never 
strike  me  with  your  hammer,  but  that  you  will  pay  me  the  same 
respect  your  father  always  paid,  and  the  seigneur  shall  be  alive, 
and  young,  too,  in  a  trice." 

The  Smith  began  promising  and  swearing  that  he  would 
never  again  lift  his  hammer  against  the  Demon,  but  would 
always  pay  him  every  attention.  Thereupon  the  journeyman 
hastened  to  the  smithy,  and  shortly  afterwards  came  back  again, 
bringing  the  seigneur  with  him,  and  crying  to  the  servants  : 

"  Hold  !  hold  !     Don't  hang  him  !     Here's  your  master !  " 

Then  they  immediately  untied  the  cords,  and  let  the  Smith 
go  free. 

From  that  time  forward  the  Smith  gave  up  spitting  at  the 
Demon  and  striking  him  with  his  hammer.  The  journeyman 
disappeared,  and  was  never  seen  again.  But  the  seigneur  and 
his  lady  entered  upon  a  prosperous  course  of  life,  and  if  they 
haven't  died,  they're  living  still.* 

*  The  chort  of  this  legend  is  evidently  akin  to  the  devil  himself,  whom  traditions 
f'equently  connect  with  blacksmiths  ;  but  his  prototype,  in  the  original  form  of  this 
story,  was  doubtless  a  demi-god  or  demon.  His  part  is  played  by  St.  Nicholas  in  the 
legend  of  "  The  Priest  with  the  Greedy  Eyes,"  for  whirh,  and  for  further  comment  on 
the  story,  see  Chap.  VI 


INTRODUCTORY.  76 


CHAPTER  II. 

MYTHOLOGICAL. 

Principal  Incarnations  of  Evil. 

The  present  chapter  is  devoted  to  specimens  of  those 
skazkas  which  most  Russian  critics  assert  to  be  distinctly 
mythical.  The  stones  of  this  class  are  so  numerous,  that 
the  task  of  selection  has  been  by  no  means  easy.  But  I 
have  done  my  best  to  choose  such  examples  as  are  most 
characteristic  of  that  species  of  the  "mythical"  folk-tale 
which  prevails  in  Russia,  and  to  avoid,  as  far  as  possible, 
the  repetition  of  narratives  which  have  already  been  made 
familiar  to  the  English  reader  by  translations  of  German 
and  Scandinavian  stories. 

There  is  a  more  marked  individuality  in  the  Russian 
tales  of  this  kind,  as  compared  with  those  of  Western 
Europe,  than  is  to  be  traced  in  the  stories  (especially  those 
of  a  humorous  cast)  which  relate  to  the  events  that  chequer 
an  ordinary  existence.  The  actors  in  the  comediettas  of 
European  peasant-life  vary  but  little,  either  in  title  or  in 
character,  wherever  the  scene  may  be  laid ;  just  as  in  the 
European  beast-epos  the  Fox,  the  Wolf,  and  the  Bear  pla^ 
parts  which  change  but  slightly  with  the  regions  they  in- 
habit. But  the  supernatural  beings  which  people  the 
fairy-land  peculiar  to  each  race,  though  closely  resembling 
each  other  in  many  respects,  differ  conspicuously  in  others. 


/в  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

They  may,  it  is  true,  be  nothing  more  than  various 
developments  of  the  same  original  type  ;  they  may  be 
traceable  to  germs  common  to  the  prehistoric  ancestors  of 
the  now  widely  separated  Aryan  peoples ;  their  peculiari- 
ties may  simply  be  due  to  the  accidents  to  which  travellers 
from  distant  lands  are  liable.  But  at  all  events  each  family 
now  has  features  of  its  own,  typical  characteristics  by 
which  it  may  be  readily  distinguished  from  its  neighbors. 
My  chief  aim  at  present  is  to  give  an  idea  of  those  char- 
acteristics which  lend  individuality  to  the  "  mythical 
beings "  in  the  Skazkas  ;  in  order  to  effect  this,  I  shall 
attempt  a  delineation  of  those  supernatural  figures,  to 
some  extent  peculiar  to  Slavonic  fairy-land,  which  make 
their  appearance  in  the  Russian  folk-tales.  I  have  given 
a  brief  sketch  of  them  elsewhere.*  I  now  propose  to  deal 
with  them  more  fully,  quoting  at  length,  instead  of  merely 
mentioning,  some  of  the  evidence  on  which  the  proof  of 
their  existence  depends. 

For  the  sake  of  convenience,  we  may  select  from  the 
great  mass  of  the  mythical  skazkas  those  which  are  sup- 
posed most  manifestly  to  typify  the  conflict  of  opposing 
elements — whether  of  Good  and  Evil,  or  of  Light  and 
Darkness,  or  of  Heat  and  Cold,  or  of  any  other  pair  of 
antagonistic  forces  or  phenomena.  The  typical  hero  of 
this  class  of  stories,  who  represents  the  cause  of  right,  and 
who  is  resolved  by  mythologists  into  so  many  different 
essences,  presents  almost  identically  the  same  appearance 
in  most  of  the  countries  wherein  he  has  become  natural- 
ized. He  is  endowed  with  supernatural  powers,  but  he 
remains  a  man,  for  all  that.  Whether  as  prince  or  peasant, 
he  alters  but  very  little  in  his  wanderings  among  the  Aryan 
races  of  Europe. 

*  "  Songs  of  the  RussiaD  People,"  pp.  160-185. 


I  NT  ROD  UCTOR  Y.  77 

And  a  somewhat  similar  statement  may  be  made  about 
his  feminine  counterpart — for  all  the  types  of  Fairy-land 
life  are  of  an  epicene  nature,  admitting  of  a  feminine  as 
well  as  a  masculine  development — the  heroine  who  in  the 
Skazkas,  as  well  as  in  other  folk- tales,  braves  the  wrath  of 
female  demons  in  quest  of  means  whereby  to  lighten  the 
darkness  of  her  home,  or  rescues  her  bewitched  brothers 
from  the  thraldom  of  an  enchantress,  or  liberates  her 
captive  husband  from  a  dungeon's  gloom. 

But  their  antagonists — the '  dark  or  evil  beings  whom 
the  hero  attacks  and  eventually  destroys,  or  whom  the 
heroine  overcomes  by  her  virtues,  her  subtlety,  or  her  skill 
— vary  to  a  considerable  extent  with  the  region  they 
occupy,  or  rather  with  the  people  in  whose  memories  they 
dwell.  The  Giants  by  killing  whom  our  own  Jack  gained 
his  renown,  the  Norse  Trolls,  the  Ogres  of  southern 
romance,  the  Drakos  and  Lamia  of  modern  Greece,  the 
Lithuanian  Laume — these  and  all  the  other  groups  of 
monstrous  forms  under  which  the  imagination  of  each  race 
has  embodied  its  ideas  about  (according  to  one  hypothesis) 
the  Powers  of  Darkness  it  feared,  or  (according  to  another) 
the  Aborigines  it  detested,  differ  from  each  other  to  a  con- 
siderable and  easily  recognizable  extent.  An  excellent 
illustration  of  this  statement  is  offered  by  the  contrast 
between  the  Slavonic  group  of  supernatural  beings  of  this 
class  and  their  equivalents  in  lands  tenanted  by  non- 
Slavonic  members  of  the  Indo-European  family.  A  family 
likeness  will,  of  course,  be  traced  between  all  these  con- 
ceptions of  popular  fancy,  but  the  gloomy  figures  with 
which  the  folk-tales  of  the  Slavonians  render  us  familiar 
may  be  distinguished  at  a  glance  among  their  kindred 
monsters  of  Latin,  Hellenic,  Teutonic,  or  Celtic  extrac- 


78  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

tion.  0:  those  among  the  number  to  which  the  Russian 
skazkas  relate  I  will  now  proceed  to  give  a  sketch,  allow- 
ing the  stories,  so  far  as  is  possible,  to  speak  for  them- 
selves. 

If  the  powers  of  darkness  in  the  "  mythical  "  skazkas 
are  divided  into  two  groups — the  one  male,  the  other 
female — there  stand  out  as  the  most  prominent  figures  in 
the  former  set,  the  Snake  (or  some  other  illustration  of 
"  Zoological  Mythology "),  Koshchei  the  Deathless,  and 
*he  Morskoi  Tsar  or  King  of  the  Waters.  In  the  latter 
group  the  principal  characters  are  the  Baba  Yaga,  or  Hag, 
her  close  connection  the  Witch,  апД  the  Female  Snake, 
On  the  forms  and  natures  of  the  /ess  conspicuous  charac- 
ters to  be  found  in  either  class  we  will  not  at  present 
dwell.  An  opportunity  for  comrnen'.ing  on  some  of  them 
will  be  afforded  in  another  chapter. 

To  begin  with  the  Snake.  His  outline,  like  that  of  the 
cloud  with  which  he  is  so  frequently  associated,  and  which 
he  is  often  supposed  to  typify,  is  seldom  well-defined. 
Now  in  one  form  and  now  in  another,  he  glides  a  shift- 
ing shape,  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  obtain  a  satisfactory 
view.  Sometimes  he  retains  throughout  the  story  an 
exclusively  reptilian  character ;  sometimes  he  is  of  a 
mixed  nature,  partly  serpent  and  partly  man.  In  one 
story  we  see  him  riding  on  horseback,  with  hawk  on  wrist 
(or  raven  on  shoulder)  and  hound  at  heel ;  in  another 
he  figures  as  a  composite  being  with  a  human  body  and 
a  serpent's  head ;  in  a  third  he  flies  as  a  fiery  snake 
into  his  mistress's  bower,  stamps  with  his  foot  on  the 
ground,  and  becomes  a  youthful  gallant.  But  in  most 
cases  he  is  a  serpent  which  in  outward  appearance  seems 
to  differ  from  other  ophidians  only  in  being  winged  and 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  79 

polycephalous — the  number  of  his  heads  generally  varying 
from  three  to  twelve.* 

He  is  often  known  by  the  name  of  Zmei'  [snake]  Gorui- 
nuich  [son  of  the  gora  or  mountain],  and  sometimes  he  is 
supposed  to  dwell  in  the  mountain  caverns.  To  his  abode, 
whether  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  or  in  the  open  light  of 
day— whether  it  be  a  sumptuous  palace  or  "an  izba  on 
fowl's  legs,"  a  hut  upheld  by  slender  supports  on  which  it 
turns  as  on  a  pivot — he  carries  off  his  prey.  In  one  story 
he  appears  to  have  stolen,  or  in  some  way  concealed,  the 
day-light ;  in  another  the  bright  moon  and  the  many  stars 
come  forth  from  within  him  after  his  death.  But  as  a 
general  rule  it  is  some  queen  or  princess  whom  he  tears 
away  from  her  home,  as  Pluto  carried  off  Proserpina,  and 
who  remains  with  him  reluctantly,  and  hails  as  her  rescuer 
the  hero  who  comes  to  give  him  battle.  Sometimes,  how- 
ever, the  snake  is  represented  as  having  a  wife  of  his  own 
species,  and  daughters  who  share  their  parent's  tastes  and 
powers.     Such  is  the  case  in  the  (South-Russian)  story  of 

Ivan  Popyalof. f 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  an  old  couple,  and  they  had  three 
sons.  Two  of  these  had  their  wits  about  them,  but  the  third 
was  a  simpleton,  Ivan  by  name,  surnamed  Popyalof. 

For  twelve  whole  years  Ivan  lay  among  the  ashes  from  the 
stove ;  but  then  he  arose,  and  shook  himself,  so  that  six  poods 
of  ashes  %  fell  off  from  him. 

Now  in  the  land  in  which  Ivan  lived  there  was  never  any 
day,  but  always  night.     That  was  a  Snake's  doing.     Well,  Ivan 

*  In  one  story  (Khudyakof,  No.  117)  there  are  snakes  with  twenty-eight  and 
twenty-nine  heads,  but  this  is  unusual. 

1  Afanasief,  ii.  No.  30.  From  the  Chemigof  Government.  The  accent  falls  on 
the  secoud  syllable  of  Ivan,  on  the  first  of  Popyalof. 

X  Popyal,  provincial  word  for  pepcl  =  ashes,  cinders,  whence  the  surname 
Popyalof.    A  pood  is  about  4olbs. 


80  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

undertook  to  kill  that  Snake,  so  he  said  to  his  father,  "  Fathef 
make  me  a  mace  five  poods  in  weight."  And  when  he  had  got 
the  mace,  he  went  out  into  the  fields,  and  flung  it  straight  up  in 
the  air,  and  then  he  went  home.  The  next  day  he  went  out  into 
the  fields  to  the  spot  from  which  he  had  flung  the  mace  on  high, 
and  stood  there  with  his  head  thrown  back.  So  when  the  mace 
fell  down  again  it  hit  him  on  the  forehead.  And  the  mace 
broke  in  two. 

Ivan  went  home  and  said  to  his  father,  "  Father,  make  me 
another  mace,  a  ten  pood  one."  And  when  he  had  got  it  he 
went  out  into  the  fields,  and  flung  it  aloft.  And  the  mace  went 
flying  through  the  air  for  three  days  and  three  nights.  On  the 
fourth  day  Ivan  went  out  to  the  same  spot,  and  when  the  mace 
came  tumbling  down,  he  put  his  knee  in  the  way,  and  the  mace 
broke  over  it  into  three  pieces. 

Ivan  went  home  and  told  his  father  to  make  him  a  third 
mace,  one  of  fifteen  poods  weight.  And  when  he  had  got  it,  he 
went  out  into  the  fields  and  flung  it  aloft.  And  the  mace  was 
up  in  the  air  six  days.  On  the  seventh  Ivan  went  to  the  same 
spot  as  before.  Down  fell  the  mace,  and  when  it  struck  Ivan's 
forehead,  the  forehead  bowed  under  it.  Thereupon  he  said, 
"  This  mace  will  do  for  the  Snake  !  " 

So  when  he  had  got  everything  ready,  he  went  forth  with 
his  brothers  to  fight  the  Snake.  He  rode  and  rode,  and  pres- 
ently there  stood  before  him  a  hut  on  fowl's  legs,*  and  in  that 
hut  lived  the  Snake.  There  all  the  party  came  to  a  standstill. 
Then  Ivan  hung  up  his  gloves,  and  said  to  his  brothers,  "  Should 
blood  drop  from  my  gloves,  make  haste  to  help  me."  When  he 
had  said  this  he  went  into  the  hut  and  sat  down  under  the 
boarding,  f 

Presently  there  rode  up  a  Snake  with  three  heads.  His 
steed  stumbled,  his  hound  howled,  his  falcon  clamored. $  Then 
cried  the  Snake : 

*  On  slender  supports. 

t  Pod  mostom,  i.  е.,  says  Afansief  (vol.  v.  p.  243),  under  the  raised  floorinj; 
which,  in  an  izba,  serves  as  a  sleeping  place. 

%  Zatvelyef,  apparently  a  provincial  word. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  81 

"  Wherefore  hast  thou  stumbled,  О  Steed  !  hast  thou  howled, 
О  Hound !  hast  thou  clamored,  О  Falcon  ? " 

"  How  can  I  but  stumble,"  replied  the  Steed,  "  when  under 
the  boarding  sits  Ivan  Popyalof  ?  " 

Then  said  the  Snake,  "  Come  forth,  Ivanushka  !  Let  us 
try  our  strength  together."  Ivan  came  forth,  and  they  began  to 
fight.  And  Ivan  killed  the  Snake,  and  then  sat  down  again 
oeneath  the  boarding. 

Presently  there  came  another  Snake,  a  six-headed  one,  and 
him,  too,  Ivan  killed.  And  then  there  came  a  third,  which  had 
twelve  heads.  Well,  Ivan  began  to  fight  with  him,  and  lopped 
off  nine  of  his  heads.  The  Snake  had  no  strength  left  in  him. 
Just  then  a  raven  came  flying  by,  and  it  croaked : 

"Krof?  Krof!"* 

Then  the  Snake  cried  to  the  Raven,  "  Fly,  and  tell  my  wife 
to  come  and  devour  Ivan  Popyalof." 

But  Ivan  cried  :  "  Fly,  and  tell  my  brothers  to  come,  and 
then  we  will  kill  this  Snake,  and  give  his  flesh  to  thee." 

And  the  Raven  gave  ear  to  what  Ivan  said,  and  flew  to  his 
brothers  and  began  to  croak  above  their  heads.  The  brothers 
awoke,  and  when  they  heard  the  cry  of  the  Raven,  they  hastened 
to  their  brother's  aid.  And  they  killed  the  Snake,  and  then, 
having  taken  his  heads,  they  went  into  his  hut  and  destroyed 
them.  And  immediately  there  was  bright  light  throughout  the 
whole  land. 

After  killing  the  Snake,  Ivan  Popyalof  and  his  brothers  set 
off  on  their  way  home.  But  he  had  forgotten  to  take  away  his 
gloves,  so  he  went  back  to  fetch  them,  telling  his  brothers  to 
wait  for  him  meanwhile.  Now  when  he  had  reached  the  hut 
and  was  going  to  take  away  his  gloves,  he  heard  the  voices  of 
the  Snake's  wife  and  daughters,  who  were  talking  with  each 
other.  So  he  turned  himself  into  a  cat,  and  began  to  mew 
outside  the  door.  They  let  him  in,  and  he  listened  to  every- 
thing they  said.     Then  he  got  his  gloves  and  hastened'away. 

As  soon  as  he  came  to  where  his  brothers  were,  he  mounted 

*  The  Russian  word  kro/sXso  signifies  blood. 
6 


S2  R  (/SSI A  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

his  horse,  and  they  all  started  afresh.  They  rode  and  rode ; 
presently  they  saw  before  them  a  green  meadow,  and  on  that 
meadow  lay  silken  cushions.  Then  the  elder  brothers  said, 
"Let's  turn  out  our  horses  to  graze  here,  while  we  rest  our- 
selves a  little." 

But  Ivan  said,  "Wait  a  minute,  brothers  !"  and  he  seized 
his  mace,  and  struck  the  cushions  with  it.  And  out  of  those 
cushions  there  streamed  blood. 

So  they  all  went  on  further.  They  rode  and  rode  ;  presently 
there  stood  before  them  an  apple-tree,  and  upon  it  were  gold 
and  silver  apples.  Then  the  elder  brothers  said,  "  Let's  eat  an 
apple  apiece."  But  Ivan  said,  "  Wait  a  minute,  brothers  ;  I'll 
try  them  first,"  and  he  took  his  mace,  and  struck  the  apple-tree 
with  it.     And  out  of  the  tree  streamed  blood. 

So  they  went  on  further.  They  rode  and  rode,  and  by  and 
by  they  saw  a  spring  in  front  of  them.  And  the  elder  brothers 
cried,  "Let's  have  a  drink  of  water."  But  Ivan  Popyalof 
cried:  "  Stop,  brothers  !  "  and  he  raised  his  mace  and  struck 
the  spring,  and  its  waters  became  blood. 

For  the  meadow,  the  silken  cushions,  the  apple-tree,  and  the 
spring,  were  all  of  them  daughters  of  the  Snake. 

After  killing  the  Snake's  daughters,  Ivan  and  his  brothers 
went  on  homewards.  Presently  came  the  Snake's  Wife  flying 
after  them,  and  she  opened  her  jaws  from  the  sky  to  the  earth, 
and  tried  to  swallow  up  Ivan.  But  Ivan  and  his  brothers  threw 
three  poods  of  salt  into  her  mouth.  She  swallowed  the  salt, 
thinking  it  was  Ivan  Popyalof,  but  afterwards — when  she  had 
tasted  the  salt,  and  found  out  it  was  not  Ivan — she  flew  after 
him  again. 

Then  he  perceived  that  danger  was  at  hand,  and  so  he  let 
his  horse  go  free,  and  hid  himself  behind  twelve  doors  in  the 
forge  of  Kuzma  and  Demian.  The  Snake's  Wife  came  flying 
ap,  and  said  to  Kuzma  and  Demian,  "  Give  me  up  Ivan  Popya- 
lof."    But  they  replied : 

"  Send  your  tongue  through  the  twelve  doors  and  take  him." 
So  the  Snake's  Wife  began  licking  the  doors.  But  meanwhile 
they  all  heated  iron  pincers,  and  as  soon  as  she  had  sent  her 


MYTHOL  OGICA  L .  83 

tongue  through  into  the  smithy,  they  caught  tight  hold  of  her 
by  the  tongue,  and  began  thumping  her  with  hammers.  And 
when  the  Snake's  Wife  was  dead  they  consumed  her  with  fire, 
and  scattered  her  ashes  to  the  winds.  And  then  they  went 
home,  and  there  they  lived  and  enjoyed  themselves,  feasting 
and  revelling,  and  drinking  mead  and  wine. 

I  was  there,  too,  and  had  liquor  to  drink ;  it  didn't  go  into 
my  mouth,  but  only  ran  down  my  beard.* 

The  skazka  of  Ivan  Buikovich  (Bull's  son)  f  contains  a 
varient,  of  part  of  this  story,  but  the  dragon  which  the 
Slavonic  St.  George  kills  is  called,  not  a  snake,  but  a 
Chudo-Yudo.$  Ivan  watches  one  night  while  his  brothers 
sleep.  Presently  up  rides  "  a  six-headed  Chudo-Yudo " 
which  he  easily  kills.  The  next  night  he  slays,  but  with 
more  difficulty,  a  nine-headed  specimen  of  the  same  family. 
On  the  third  night  appears  "  a  twelve-headed  Chudo-Yudo," 
mounted  on  a  horse  "  with  twelve  wings,  its  coat  of  silver, 
its  mane  and  tail  of  gold."  Ivan  lops  off  three  of  the 
monster's  heads,  but  they,  like  those  of  the  Lernaean  Hydra, 
become  re-attached  to  their  necks  at  the  touch  of  their 
owner's  "  fiery  finger."  Ivan,  whom  his  foe  has  driven  into 
the  ground  up  to  his  knees,  hurls  one  of  his  gloves  at  the 
hut  in  which  his  brothers'  are  sleeping.  It  smashes  the 
windows,  but  the  sleepers  slumber  on  and  take  no  heed. 
Presently  Ivan  smites  off  six  of  his  antagonist's  heads,  but 
they  grow  again  as  before. §     Half  buried  in  the  ground  by 

*  The  last  sentence  of  the  story  forms  one  of  the  conventional  and  meaningless 
"  tags "  frequently  attached  to  the  skazkas.  In  future  I  shall  omit  them.  Kuzma 
and  Demian  (SS.  Cosmas  and  Damian)  figure  in  Russian  folk-lore  as  saintly  and 
supernatural  smiths,  frequently  at  war  with  snakes,  which  they  maltreat  in  various 
ways.     See  A.  de  Gubernatis,  "Zoological  Mythology,"  vol.  ii.  p.  397. 

t  Afanasief,  Skazki,  vol.  vii.  p.  3. 

t  Chudo  =  prodigy.  Yudo  may  be  a  remembrance  of  Judas,  or  it  may  be  used 
merely  for  the  sake  of  the  rhyme. 

§  In  an  Indian  story  ("  Kathasaritsagara,"  book  vii.  chap.  42),  Indrasena  comes 
to  a  place  in  which  sits  a  Rakshasa  on  a  throne  between  two  fair  ladies.  He  attacks 
the  demon  with  a  magic  sword,  and  soon  cuts  off  his  head.  But  the  head  always  grows 


84  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

the  monster's  strength,  Ivan  hurls  his  other  glove  at  the 
hut,  piercing  its  roof  this  time.  But  still  his  brothers 
slumber  on.  At  last,  after  fruitlessly  shearing  off  nine  of 
the  Chudo-Yudo's  heads,  and  finding  himself  embedded  in 
the  ground  up  to  his  armpits,  Ivan  flings  his  cap  at  the  hut. 
The  hut  reels  under  the  blow  and  its  beams  fall  asunder  3 
his  brothers  awake,  and  hasten  to  his  aid,  and  the  Chudo- 
Yudo  is  destroyed.  The  "  Chudo-Yudo  wives "  as  the 
widows  of  the  three  monsters  are  called,  then  proceed  to 
play  the  parts  attributed  in  "  Ivan  Popyalof  "  to  the  Snake's 
daughters. 

"Twill  become  an  apple-tree  with  golden  and  silver 
apples,"  says  the  first ;  "  whoever  plucks  an  apple  will  imme- 
diately burst."  Says  the  second,  "  I  will  become  a  spring — 
on  the  water  will  float  two  cups,  the  one  golden,  the  other 
of  silver ;  whoever  touches  one  of  the  cups,  him  will  I  drown." 
And  the  third  says,  "  I  will  become  a  golden  bed  ;  whoever 
lies  down  upon  that  bed  will  be  consumed  with  fire."  Ivan, 
in  a  sparrow's  form,  overhears  all  this,  and  acts  as  in  the 
preceding  story.  The  three  widows  die,  but  their  mother, 
"  an  old  witch,"  determines  on  revenge.  Under  the  form  of 
a  beggar  woman  she  asks  alms  from  the  retreating  brothers. 
Ivan  tenders  her  a  ducat.  She  seizes,  not  the  ducat,  but 
his  outstretched  hand,  and  in  a  moment  whisks  him  off  un- 
derground to  her  husband,  an  Aged  One,  whose  appearance 
is  that  of  the  mythical  being  whom  the  Servians  call  the 
Vy.  He  "  lies  on  an  iron  couch,  and  sees  nothing  ;  his  long 
eyelashes  and  thick  eyebrows  completely  hide  his  eyes," 

again,  until  at  last  the  younger  of  the  ladies  gives  him  a  sign  to  split  in  half  the  head 
he  has  just  chopped  off.  Thereupon  the  demon  dies,  and  the  two  ladies  greet  the 
Conqueror  rapturously.  The  younger  is  the  demon's  sister,  the  elder  is  a  king's  daughter 
whom  the  demon  has  carried  off  from  her  home,  after  eating  her  father  and  all  his 
followers.  See  Professor  Brockhaus's  summary  in  the  "  Berichte  der  phil.  hist.  Classe 
ier  K.  Sachs.  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenchaften,"  186i.  pp.  241—2. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  85 

but  he  sends  for  "  twelve  mighty  heroes,"  and  orders  them  to 
take  iron  forks  and  lift  up  the  hair  about  his  eyes,  and  then 
he  gazes  at  the  destroyer  of  his  family.  The  glance  of  the 
Servian  Vy  is  supposed  to  be  as  deadly  as  that  of  a 
basilisk,  but  the  patriarch  of  the  Russian  story  does  not 
injure  his  captive.  He  merely  sends  him  on  an  errand 
which  leads  to  a  fresh  set  of  adventures,  of  which  we  need 
not  now  take  notice. 

In  a  third  variant  of  the  story,*  they  are  snakes  which  are 
killed  by  the  hero,  Ivan  Koshkin  (Cat's  son),  and  it  is  a 
Baba  Yaga,  or  Hag,  who  undertakes  to  revenge  their  deaths, 
and  those  of  their  wives,  her  daughters.  Accordingly  she 
pursues  the  three  brothers,  and  succeeds  in  swallowing  two 
of  them.  The  third,  Ivan  Koshkin,  takes  refuge  in  a  smithy» 
and,  as  before,  the  monster's  tongue  is  seized,  and  she  is 
beaten  with  hammers  until  she  disgorges  her  prey,  none  the 
worse  for  their  temporary  imprisonment. 

We  have  seen,  in  the  story  about  the  Chudo-Yudo, 
that  the  place  usually  occupied  by  the  Snake  is  at  times 
filled  by  some  other  magical  being.  This  frequently  occurs 
in  that  class  of  stories  which  relates  how  three  brothers  set 
out  to  apprehend  a  trespasser,  or  to  seek  a  mother  or  sister 
who  has  been  mysteriously  spirited  away.  They  usually 
come  either  to  an  opening  which  leads  into  the  underground 
world,  or  to  the  base  of  an  apparently  inaccessible  hill. 
The  youngest  brother  descends  or  ascends  as  the  case  may 
be,  and  after  a  series  of  adventures  which  generally  lead 
him  through  the  kingdoms  of  copper,  of  silver,  and  of  gold, 
returns  in  triumph  to  where  his  brothers  are  awaiting  him. 
And  he  is  almost  invariably  d  ;serted  by  them,  as  soon  as 
they  have  secured  the  beautiful  princesses  who  accompany 

•  Khudyakof,  No.  46. 


86  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TAIES. 

him — as  may  be  read  in  the  following  (South-Russian) 
history  of — 

The  Norka.* 

Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  a  king  and  queen.  They  had  three 
sons,  two  of  them  with  their  wits  about  them,  but  the  third  a 
simpleton.  Now  the  King  had  a  deer-parkin  which  were  quan- 
tities of  wild  animals  of  different  kinds.  Into  that  park  there 
used  to  come  a  huge  beast — Norka  was  its  name — and  do  fearful 
mischief,  devouring  some  of  the  animals  every  night.  The  King 
did  all  he  could,  but  he  was  unable  to  destroy  it.  So  at  last  he 
called  his  sons  together  and  said :  "  Whoever  will  destroy  the 
Norka,  to  him  will  I  give  the  half  of  my  kingdom." 

Well,  the  eldest  son  undertook  the  task.  As  soon  as  it  was 
night,  he  took  his  weapons  and  set  out.  But  before  he  reached 
the  park,  he  went  into  a  traklir  (or  tavern),  and  there  he  spent 
the  whole  night  in  revelry.  When  he  came  to  his  senses  it  was 
too  late  ;  the  day  had  already  dawned.  He  felt  himself  disgraced 
in  the  eyes  of  his  father,  but  there  was  no  help  for  it.  The  next 
day  the  second  son  went,  and  did  just  the  same.  Their  father 
scolded  them  both  soundly,  and  there  was  an  end  of  it. 

Well,  on  the  third  day  the  youngest  son  undertook  the  task. 
They  all  laughed  him  to  scorn,  because  he  was  so  stupid,  feeling 
sure  he  wouldn't  do  anything.  But  he  took  his  arms,  and  went 
straight  into  the  park,  and  sat  down  on  the  grass  in  such  a  posi- 
tion that,  the  moment  he  went  asleep,  his  weapons  would  prick 
him,  and  he  would  awake. 

Presently  the  midnight  hour  sounded.  The  earth  began  to 
shake,  and  the  Norka  came  rushing  up,  and  burst  right  through 
the  fence  into  the  park,  so  huge  was  it.  The  Prince  pulled  him- 
self together,  leapt  to  his  feet,  crossed  himself,  and  went  straight 
at  the  beast.  It  fled  back,  and  the  Prince  ran  after  it.  But  he 
soon  saw  that  he  couldn't  catch  it  on  foot,  so  he  hastened  to  the 
stable  laid  his  hands  on  the  best  horse  there,  and  set  off  in  pur- 

*  Afanasief,  vol.  i.  No.  6.  From  the  Chernij,  of  Government.  The  Norka-Zvyer 
(Norka-Beast)  of  this  story  is  a  fabulous  creature,  but  zoologically  the  name  of  Norka 
(fro.n  nora  —  a  hole)  belongs  to  the  Otter. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  8* 

suit.  Presently  he  came  up  with  the  beast,  and  they  began  a 
fight.  They  fought  and  fought ;  the  Prince  gave  the  beast  three 
wounds.  At  last  they  were  both  utterly  exhausted,  so  they  lay 
down  to  take  a  short  rest.  But  the  moment  the  Prince  closed  his 
eyes,  up  jumped  the  Beast  and  took  to  flight.  The  Prince's  horse 
awoke  him ;  up  he  jumped  in  a  moment,  and  set  off  again  in 
pursuit,  caught  up  the  Beast,  and  again  began  fighting  with  it. 
Again  the  Prince  gave  the  Beast  three  wounds,  and  then  he  and 
the  Beast  lay  down  again  to  rest.  Thereupon  away  fled  the 
Beast  as  before.  The  Prince  caught  it  up,  and  again  gave  it 
three  wounds.  But  all  of  a  sudden,  just  as  the  Prince  began 
chasing  it  for  the  fourth  time,  the  Beast  fled  to  a  great  white 
stone,  tilted  it  up,  and  escaped  into  the  other  world,*  crying  out 
to  the  Prince  :  "  Then  only  will  you  overcome  me,  when  you 
enter  here." 

The  Prince  went  home,  told  his  father  all  that  had  happened, 
and  asked  him  to  have  a  leather  rope  plaited,  long  enough  to 
reach  to  the  other  world.  His  father  ordered  this  to  be  done. 
When  the  rope  was  made,  the  Prince  called  for  his  brothers,  and 
he  and  they,  having  taken  servants  with  them,  and  everything  that 
was  needed  for  a  whole  year,  set  out  for  the  place  where  the 
Beast  had  disappeared  under  the  stone.  When  they  got  there, 
they  built  a  palace  on  the  spot,  and  lived  in  it  for  some  time. 
But  when  everything  was  ready,  the  youngest  brother  said  to 
the  others  :  "  Now,  brothers,  who  is  going  to  lift  this  stone  ?" 

Neither  of  them  could  so  much  as  stir  it,  but  as  soon  as  he 
touched  it,  away  it  flew  to  a  distance,  though  it  was  ever  so  big — 
big  as  a  hill.  And  when  he  had  flung  the  stone  aside,  he  spoke 
a  second  time  to  his  brothers,  saying : 

"  Who  is  going  into  the  other  world,  to  overcome  the  Norka  ?  " 

Neither  of  them  offered  to  do  so.  Then  he  laughed  at  them 
for  being  such  cowards,  and  said  : 

"Well,  brothers,  farewell!  Lower  me  into  the  other  world, 
and  don't  go  away  from  here,  but  as  soon  as  the  cord  is  jerked, 
pull  it  up." 

His  brothers  lowered  him  accordingly,  and   when  he   had 

*  Literally  "  into  tliat  world  "  as  opposed  to  this  in  which  we  live. 


88  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

reached  the  other  world,  underneath  the  earth,  he  went  on  hia 
way.  He  walked  and  walked.  Presently  he  espied  a  horse  with 
rich  trappings,  and  it  said  to  him : 

"  Hail,  Prince  Ivan  !     Long  have  I  awaited  thee  ! " 

He  mounted  the  horse  and  rode  on — rode  and  rode,  until  he 
saw  standing  before  him,  a  palace  made  of  copper.  He  entered 
the  courtyard,  tied  up  his  horse,  and  went  indoors.  In  one  of 
the  rooms  a  dinner  was  laid  out.  He  sat  down  and  dined,  and 
then  went  into  a  bedroom.  There  he  found  a  bed,  on  which  he 
lay  down  to  rest.  Presently  there  came  in  a  lady,  more  beau- 
tiful than  can  be  imagined  anywhere  but  in  a  skazka,  who  said : 

"  Thou  who  art  in  my  house,  name  thyself!  If  thou  art  an 
old  man,  thou  shalt  be  my  father ;  if  a  middle-aged  man,  my 
brother ;  but  if  a  young  man,  thou  shalt  be  my  husband  dear. 
And  if  thou  art  a  woman,  and  an  old  one,  thou  shalt  be  my  grand- 
mother ;  if  middle-aged,  my  mother ;  and  if  a  girl,  thou  shalt  be 
■jny  own  sister."* 

Thereupon  he  came  forth.  And  when  she  saw  him,  she  was 
delighted  with  him,  and  said  : 

"  Wherefore,  О  Prince  Ivan — my  husband  dear  shalt  thou  be  ! 
— wherefore  hast  thou  come  hither  ?  " 

Then  he  told  her  all  that  had  happened,  and  she  said : 

"  That  beast  which  thou  wishest  to  overcome  is  my  brother. 
He  is  staying  just  now  with  my  second  sister,  who  lives  not  far 
from  here  in  a  silver  palace.  I  bound  up  three  of  the  wounds 
which  thou  didst  give  him." 

Well,  after  this  they  drank,  and  enjoyed  themselves,  and  held 
sweet  converse  together,  and  then  the  prince  took  leave  of  her, 
and  went  on  to  the  second  sister,  the  one  who  lived  in  the  silver 
palace,  and  with  her  also  he  stayed  awhile.  She  told  him  that 
her  brother  Norka  was  then  at  her  youngest  sister's.  So  he 
went  on  to  the  youngest  sister,  who  lived  in  a  golden  palace. 
She  told  him  that  her  brother  was  at  that  time  asleep  on  the 
blue  sea,  and  she  gave  him  a  sword  of  steel  and  a  draught  of  the 
Water  of  Strength,  and  she  told  him  to  cut  off  her  brothers 

*  This  address  is  a  formula,  of  frequent  occurrence  under  similar  circumstances- 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  89 

head  at  a  single  stroke.     And  when  he  had  heard  these  things, 
he  went  his  way. 

And  when  the  Prince  came  to  the  blue  sea,  he  looked — there 
slept  Norka  on  a  stone  in  the  middle  of  the  sea ;  and  when  it 
snored,  the  water  was  agitated  for  seven  versts  around.  The 
Prince  crossed  himself,  went  up  to  it  and  smote  it  on  the  head 
with  his  sword.  The  head  jumped  off,  saying  the  while,  "  Well, 
I'm  done  for  now  !  "  and  rolled  far  away  into  the  sea. 

After  killing  the  Beast,  the  Prince  went  back  again,  picking 
up  all  the  three  sisters  by  the  way,  with  the  intention  of  taking 
them  out  into  the  upper  world  :  for  they  all  loved  him  and  would 
not  be  separated  from  him.  Each  of  them  turned  her  palace 
into  an  egg — for  they  were  all  enchantresses — and  they  taught 
him  how  to  turn  the  eggs  into  palaces,  and  back  again,  and  they 
handed  over  the  eggs  to  him.  And  then  they  all  went  to  the 
place  from  which  they  had  to  be  hoisted  into  the  upper  world. 
And  when  they  came  to  where  the  rope  was,  the  Prince  took 
hold  of  it  and  made  the  maidens  fast  to  it.*  Then  he  jerked 
away  at  the  rope,  and  his  brothers  began  to  haul  it  up.  And 
when  they  had  hauled  it  up,  and  had  set  eyes  on  the  wondrous 
maidens,  they  went  aside  and  said :  "  Let's  lower  the  rope,  pull 
our  brother  part  of  the  way  up,  and  then  cut  the  rope.  Perhaps 
he'll  be  killed ;  but  then  if  he  isn't,  he'll  never  give  us  these 
beauties  as  wives." 

So  when  they  had  agreed  on  this,  they  lowered  the  rope. 
But  their  brother  was  no  fool ;  he  guessed  what  they  were  at, 
so  he  fastened  the  rope  to  a  stone,  and  then  gave  it  a  pull. 
His  brothers  hoisted  the  stone  to  a  great  height,  and  then  cut 
the  rope.  Down  fell  the  stone  and  broke  in  pieces  ;  the  Prince 
poured  forth  tears  and  went  away.  Well,  he  walked  and  walked. 
Presently  a  storm  arose  ;  the  lightning  flashed,  the  thunder 
roared,  the  rain  fell  in  torrents.  He  went  up  to  a  tree  in  order 
to  take  shelter  under  it,  and  on  that  tree  he  saw  some  young 
birds  which  were  being  thoroughly  drenched.  So  he  took  off 
his  с  )at  and  covered  them  over  with  it,  and  he  himself  sat  down 

*  Literally  "  seated  the  maidens  and  pulled  the  rope." 


90  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

under  the  tree.  Presently  there  came  flying  a  bird — such  a  big 
one,  that  the  light  was  blotted  out  by  it.  It  had  been  dark 
there  before,  but  now  it  became  darker  still.  Now  this  was  the 
mother  of  those  small  birds  which  the  Prince  had  covered  up. 
And  when  the  bird  had  come  flying  up,  she  perceived  that  her 
little  ones  were  covered  over,  and  she  said,  "  Who  has  wrapped 
up  my  nestlings  ?  "  and  presently,  seeing  the  Prince,  she  added  : 
u  Didst  thou  do  that  ?  Thanks !  In  return,  ask  of  me  any 
thing  thou  desirest.     I  will  do  anything  for  thee." 

"  Then  carry  me  into  the  other  world,"  he  replied. 

"Make  me  a  large  zasyek\  with  a  partition  in  the  middle," 
she  said  ;  "catch  all  sorts  of  game,  and  put  them  into  one  half 
of  it,  and  into  the  other  half  pour  water  ;  so  that  there  may  be 
meat  and  drink  for  me." 

AH  this  the  Prince  did.  Then  the  bird — having  taken  the 
zasyek  on  her  back,  with  the  Prince  sitting  in  the  middle  of  it — ■ 
began  to  fly.  And  after  flying  some  distance  she  brought  him 
to  his  journey's  end,  took  leave  of  him,  and  flew  away  back. 
But  he  went  to  the  house  of  a  certain  tailor,  and  engaged  him- 
self as  his  servant.  So  much  the  worse  for  wear  was  he,  so 
thoroughly  had  he  altered  in  appearance,  that  nobody  would 
have  suspected  him  of  being  a  Prince. 

Having  entered  into  the  service  of  this  master,  the  Prince 
began  to  ask  what  was  going  on  in  that  country.  And  his 
master  replied  :  "  Our  two  princes — for  the  third  one  has  dis- 
appeared— have  brought  away  brides  from  the  other  world,  and 
want  to  marry  them,  but  those  brides  refuse.  For  they  insist 
on  having  all  their  wedding-clothes  made  for  them  first,  exactly 
like  those  which  they  used  to  have  in  the  other  world,  and  that 
without  being  measured  for  them.  The  King  has  called  all  the 
workmen  together,  but  not  one  of  them  will  undertake  to  do  it." 

The  Prince,  having  heard  all  this,  said,  "  Go  to  the  King, 
master,  and  tell  him  that  you  will  provide  everything  that's  in 
your  line." 

"  However  can  I  undertake  to  make  clothes  of  that  sort ; 
I  work  for  quite  common  folks,"  says  his  master. 

t  Some  sort  of  safe  or  bin. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  91 

"Go  along,  master!  I  will  answer  for  everything,"  says 
the  Prince. 

So  the  tailor  went.  The  King  was  delighted  that  at  least 
one  good  workman  had  been  found,  and  gave  him  as  much 
money  as  ever  he  wanted.  When  the  tailor  had  settled  every- 
thing, he  went  home.     And  the  Prince  said  to  him  : 

"  Now  then,  pray  to  God,  and  lie  down  to  sleep ;  to-morrow 
all  will  be  ready."  And  the  tailor  followed  his  lad's  advice, 
and  went  to  bed. 

Midnight  sounded.  The  Prince  arose,  went  out  of  the  city 
into  the  fields,  took  out  of  his  pocket  the  eggs  which  the 
maidens  had  given  him,  and,  as  they  had  taught  him,  turned 
them  into  three  palaces.  Into  each  of  these  he  entered,  took 
the  maidens'  robes,  went  out  again,  turned  the  palaces  back 
into  eggs,  and  went  home.  And  when  he  got  there  he  hung  up 
the  robes  on  the  wall,  and  lay  down  to  sleep. 

Early  in  the  morning  his  master  awoke,  and  behold  !  there 
hung  such  robes  as  he  had  never  seen  before,  all  shining  with 
gold  and  silver  and  precious  stones.  He  was  delighted,  and  he 
seized  them  and  carried  them  off  to  the  King.  When  the  prin- 
cesses saw  that  the  clothes  were  those  which  had  been  theirs  in 
the  other  world,  they  guessed  that  Prince  Ivan  was  in  this 
world,  so  they  exchanged  glances  with  each  other,  but  they 
held  their  peace.  And  the  master,  having  handed  over  the 
clothes,  went  home,  but  he  no  longer  found  his  dear  journeyman 
there.  For  the  Prince  had  gone  to  a  shoemaker's,  and  him  too' 
he  sent  to  work  for  the  King ;  and  in  the  same  way  he  went  the 
round  of  all  the  artificers,  and  they  all  proffered  him  thanks, 
inasmuch  as  through  him  they  were  enriched  by  the  King. 

By  the  time  the  princely  workman  had  gone  the  round  of  all 
the  artificers,  the  princesses  had  received  what  they  had  asked 
for ;  all  their  clothes  were  just  like  what  they  had  been  in  the 
other  world.  Then  they  wept  bitterly  because  the  Prince  had 
not  come,  and  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  hold  out  any 
longer,  it  was  necessary  that  they  should  be  married.  But  when 
they  were  ready  for  the  wedding,  the  youngest  bride  said  to  the 
King: 


92  R  LTSS ТА  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

"  Allow  me,  my  father,  to  go  and  give  alms  to  the  beggars." 

He  gave  her  leave,  and  she  went  and  began  bestowing  alms 
upon  them,  and  examining  them  closely.  And  when  she  haa 
come  to  one  of  them,  and  was  going  to  give  him  some  money, 
she  caught  sight  of  the  ring  which  she  had  given  to  the  Prince 
in  the  other  world,  and  her  sisters'  rings  too — for  it  really  was 
he.  So  she  seized  him  by  the  hand,  and  brought  him  into  the 
hall,  and  said  to  the  King: 

"  Here  is  he  who  brought  us  out  of  the  other  world.  His 
brothers  forbade  us  to  say  that  he  was  alive,  threatening  to  slay 
us  if  we  did." 

Then  the  King  was  wroth  with  those  sons,  and  punished 
them  as  he  thought  best.  And  afterwards  three  weddings  were 
celebrated. 

[The  conclusion  of  this  story  is  somewhat  obscure.  Most  of  the  variants  repre 
sent  the  Prince  as  forgiving  his  brothers,  and  allowing  them  to  marry  two  of  the  three 
princesses,  but  the  present  version  appears  to  keep  closer  to  its  original,  in  which  the 
prince  doubtless  married  all  three.  With  this  story  may  be  compared  :  Grimm,  No. 
166,  "  Der  starke  Hans,"  and  No.  91,  "Dat  Erdmanneken."  See  also  vol.  iii.  p. 
165,  where  a  reference  is  given  to  the  Hungarian  story  in  Gaal,  No.  5— Dasent,  No. 
55,  "  The  Big  Bird  Dan,"  and  No-  56,  "  Soria  Moria  Castle"  (Asbjomsen  and  Мое, 
Nos.  3  and  2.  A  somewhat  similar  story,  only  the  palaces  are  in  the  air,  occurs  in 
Asbjornsen's  "  Ny  Samling,"  No  72)— Campbell's  "  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands," 
No.  58— Schleicher's  "  Litauische  Mahrchen,"  No.  38 — The  Polish  story,  Wojcicki, 
Book  iii.  No.  6,  in  which  Norka  is  replaced  by  a  witch  who  breaks  the  windows  of  a 
church,  and  is  wounded,  in  falcon-shape,  by  the  youngest  brother — Hahn,  No.  70,  in 
which  a  Drakos,  as  a  clout,  steals  golden  apples,  a  story  closely  resembling  the  Rus- 
sian skazka.  See  also  No.  26,  very  similar  to  which  is  the  Servian  Story  in  "  Vuk 
Karajich,"  No  2 — and  a  very  interesting  Tuscan  story  printed  for  the  first  time  by  A. 
de  Gubernatis,  "Zoological  Mythology,"  vol.  ii.  p.  187.     See  also  ibid.  p.  391. 

But  still  more  important  than  these  are  the  parallels  offered  by  Indian  fiction. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  story  of  Sringabhuja,  in  chap,  xxxix.  of  book  vii.  of  the 
"  Kathasaritsagara."  In  it  the  elder  sons  of  a  certain  king  wish  to  get  rid  of  their 
younger  half-brother.  One  day  a  Rakshasa  appears  in  the  form  of  a  gigantic  crane. 
The  other  princes  shoot  at  it  in  vain,  but  the  youngest  wounds  it,  and  then  sets  off  in 
pursuit  of  it,  and  of  the  valuable  arrow  which  is  fixed  in  it.  After  long  wandering  he 
comes  to  a  castle  in  a  forest.  There  he  finds  a  maiden  who  tells  him  she  is  the 
daughter  of  the  Rakshasa  whom,  in  the  form  of  a  crane,  he  has  wounded.  She  at 
once  takes  his  part  against  her  demon  father,  and  eventually  flies  with  him  to  his  own 
country.  The  perils  which  the  fugitives  have  to  encounter  will  be  mentioned  in  the 
remarks  on  Skazka  XIX.  See  Professor  Brockhaus's  summary  of  the  story  in  the 
"Berichte  derphil.  hist.  Classe  der  K.  Sachs.    Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaften," 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  93 

The  Adventures  of  a  prince,  the  youngest  of  three 
brothers,  who  has  been  lowered  into  the  underground  world 
or  who  has  ascended  into  an  enchanted  upper  realm,  form 
the  theme  of  numerous  skazkas,  several  of  which  are 
variants  of  the  story  of  Norka.  The  prince's  elder 
brothers  almost  always  attempt  to  kill  him,  when  he  is 
about  to  ascend  from  the  gulf  or  descend  from  the  steeps 
which  separate  him  from  them.  In  one  instance,  the  fol- 
lowing excuse  is  offered  for  their  conduct.  The  hero  has 
killed  a  Snake  in  the  underground  world,  and  is  carrying 
its  head  on  a  lance,  when  his  brothers  begin  to  hoist  him 
up.  "  His  brothers  were  frightened  at  the  sight  of  that  head 
and  thinking  the  Snake  itself  was  coming,  they  let  Ivan 
fall  back  into  the  pit."  *  But  this  apology  for  their  behavior 
seems  to  be  due  to  the  story-teller's  imagination.  In  some 
instances  their  unfraternal  conduct  may  be  explained  in 
the  following  manner.  In  oriental  tales  the  hero  is  often 
the  son  of  a  king's  youngest  wife,  and  he  is  not  unnaturally 
hated  by  his  half-brothers,  the  sons  of  an  older  queen, 
whom  the  hero's  mother  has  supplanted  in    their  royal 

i86i,pp.  223-6.  Also  Professor  Wilson's  version  in  his  "  Essays  on  Sanskrit  Litera- 
ture." vol.  ii.  pp.  134-5. 

In  two  other  stories  m  the  same  collection  the  hero  gives  chase  to  a  boar  of 
gigantic  size.  It  takes  refuge  in  a  cavern  into  which  he  follows  it.  Presently  he 
finds  himself  in  a  different  world,  wherein  he  meets  a  beauteous  maiden  who  explains 
everything  to  him.  In  the  first  of  these  two  stories  the  lady  is  the  daughter  of  a 
Rakshasa,  who  is  invulnerable  except  in  the  palm  of  the  left  hand,  for  which  reason, 
our  hero,  Chandasena  has  been  unable  to  wound  him  when  in  his  boar  disguise.  She 
instructs  Chandasena  how  to  kill  her  father,  who  accordingly  falls  a  victim  to  a  well- 
aimed  shaft.  (Brockhaus's  "  M  ahrchen-sammlung  des  Somadeva  Bhatta,"  1843, 
vol.  i.  pp.  1 10-13).  In  the  other  story,  the  lady  turns  out  to  be  a  princess  whom  "a 
demon  with  fiery  eyes  "  had  carried  off  and  imprisoned.  She  tells  the  hero,  Sak- 
tideva,  that  the  demon  has  just  died  from  a  wound  inflicted  upon  him,  while  trans- 
formed into  a  boar,  by  a  bold  archer.  Saktideva  informs  her  that  he  is  that  archer. 
Whereupon  she  immediately  requests  him  to  marry  her  (ibid.  vol.  ii.  p.  175).  In  both 
stories  the  boar  is  described  as  committing  great  ravages  in  the  upper  world  until  th« 
hero  attacks  it. 

*  Khudyakof,  ii.  p.  17. 


94  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

father's  affections.  Accordingly  they  do  their  best  to  get 
rid  of  him.  Thus,  in  one  of  the  Indian  stories  which 
correspond  to  that  of  Norka,  the  hero's  success  at  court 
"  excited  the  envy  and  jealousy  of  his  brothers  [doubtless 
half-brothers],  and  they  were  not  satisfied  until  they  had 
devised  a  plan  to  effect  his  removal,  and,  as  they  hoped, 
accomplish  his  destruction."  *  We  know  also  that  "Israel 
loved  Joseph  more  than  all  his  children,"  because  he  was 
the  son  "  of  his  old  age,"  and  the  result  was  that  "  when  his 
brethren  [who  were  only  his  half-brothers]  saw  that  their 
father  loved  him  more  than  all  his  brethren,  they  hated 
him."f  When  such  tales  as  these  came  west  in  Christian 
times,  their  references  to  polygamy  were  constantly  sup- 
pressed, and  their  distinctions  between  brothers  and  half- 
brothers  disappeared.  In  the  same  way  the  elder  and 
jealous  wife,  who  had  behaved  with  cruelty  in  the  original 
stories  to  the  offspring  of  her  rival,  often  became  turned, 
under  Christian  influences,  into  a  stepmother  who  hated 
her  husband's  children  by  a  previous  marriage. 

There  may,  however,  be  a  mythological  explanation  of 
the  behavior  of  the  two  elder  brothers.  Professor  de  Guber- 
natis  is  of  opinion  that  "  in  the  Vedic  hymns,  Tritas,  the 
third  brother,  and  the  ablest  as  well  as  best,  is  persecuted 
by  his  brothers,"  who,  "  in  a  fit  of  jealousy,  on  account  of 
his  wife,  the  aurora,  and  the  riches  she  brings  with  her  from 
the  realm  of  darkness,  the  cistern  or  well  [into  which  he 
has  been  lowered],  detain  their  brother  in  the  well,"  %  and  he 
compares  this  form  of  the  myth  with  that  which  it  assumes 
in  the  following  Hindoo  tradition.  "  Three  brothers, 
Ekata  (г.  e.  the  first),  Dtvita  (i.  e.  the  second)  and 
Trita  (/.   e.    the   third)    were   travelling  in   a   desert,  and 

*  Kathasaritsdgara,"  bk.  vii.  с  xxxix.        Wilson's  translation. 

t  Genesis,  xxxvii.  3,  4.  '•  t  Zoological  Mythology,"  i.  35. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  95 

being  distressed  with  thirst,  came  to  a  well,  from 
which  the  youngest,  Trita,  drew  water  and  gave  it  to  his 
brothers  ;  in  requital,  they  drew  him  into  the  well,  in  order 
to  appropriate  his  property  and  having  covered  the  top 
with  a  cart-wheel,  left  him  in  the  well.  In  this  extremity 
he  prayed  to  the  gods  to  extricate  him,  and  by  their  favor 
he  made  his  escape."  *  This  myth  may,  perhaps,  be  the 
germ  from  which  have  sprung  the  numerous  folk-tales  about 
the  desertion  of  a  younger  brother  in  some  pit  or  chasm, 
into  which  his  brothers  have  lowered  him.  f 

It  may  seem  more  difficult  to  account  for  the  willingness 
of  Norka's  three  sisters  to  aid  in  his  destruction — unless, 
indeed,  the  whole  story  be  considered  to  be  mythological, 
as  its  Indian  equivalents  undoubtedly  are.  But  in  many 
versions  of  the  same  tale  the  difficulty  does  not  arise. 
The  princesses  of  the  copper,  silver,  and  golden  realms, 
are  usually  represented  as  united  by  no  ties  of  consanguinity 
with  the  snake  or  other  monster  whom  the  hero  comes  to 
kill.  In  the  story  of  "  Usuinya,"  X  for  instance,  there  appears 
to  be  no  relationship  between  these  fair  maidens  and  the 
"  Usuinya  Bird,"  which  steals  the  golden  apples  from  a 
monarch's  garden  and  is  killed  by  his  youngest  son  Ivan. 
That  monster  is  not  so  much  a  bird  as  a  flying  dragon. 
"  This  Usuinya-bird  is  a  twelve-headed  snake,"  says  one  of 
the  fair  maidens.  And  presently  it  arrives — its  wings 
stretching  afar,  while  along  the  ground  trail  its  moustaches 
\usui,  whence  its  name].  In  a  variant  of  the  same  story  in 
another  collection,  §  the  part  of  Norkais  played  by  a  white 

*  "  Quoted  from  the  "  Nitimanjari,"  by  Wilson,  in  his  translation  of  the  "  Rig- 
Veda-Sanhita,"  vol.  i.  p.  142. 

t  See  also  Jfflg's  "  Kalmukische  Marchen,"  p.  19,  where  Massang,  the  Calmuck 
Minotaur,  is  abandoned  in  the  pit  by  his  companions.  J  Khudyakof,  No.  42. 

§  Erlenvein,  No.  41.  A  king's  horses  disappear.  His  youngest  son  keeps  watch 
and  discovers  that  the  thief  is  a  white  wolf.  It  escapes  into  a  hole.  He  lulls  his 
horse,  at  its  own  request  and  makes  from  its  hide  a  rope  by  which  he  is  lowered  into  the 
hole,  etc 


96  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

wolf.  In  that  of  Ivan  Suchenko  *  it  is  divided  among  three 
snakes  who  have  stolen  as  many  princesses.  For  the 
snake  is  much  given  to  abduction,  especially  when  he 
appears  under  the  terrible  form  of  "  Koshchei,  the  Death- 
less." 

Koshchei  is  merely  one  of  the  many  incarnations  of 
the  dark  spirit  which  takes  so  many  monstrous  shapes  in . 
the  folk-tales  of  the  class  with  which  we  are  now  dealing. 
Sometimes  he  is  described  as  altogether  serpent-like  in 
form ;  sometimes  he  seems  to  be  of  a  mixed  nature,  partly 
human  and  partly  ophidian,  but  in  some  of  the  stories  he 
is  apparently  framed  after  the  fashion  of  a  man.  His 
name  is  by  some  mythologists  derived  from  kosf,  a  bone 
whence  comes  a  verb  signifying  to  become  ossified,  pet- 
rified, or  frozen  ;  either  because  he  is  bony  of  limb,  or 
because  he  produces  an  effect  akin  to  freezing  or  petrifac- 
tion, f 

He  is  called  "  Immortal  "  or  "  The  Deathless,"  f  because 
of  his  superiority  to  the  ordinary  laws  of  existence.  Some- 
times, like  Baldur,  he  cannot  be  killed  except  by  one  sub- 
stance ;  sometimes  his  "death" — that  is,  the  object  with 
which  his  life  is  indissolubly  connected — does  not  exist 
within  his  body.     Like  the  vital  centre  of  "  the  giant  who 

*  Afaiiasief,  v.  54. 

t  The  word  koshc/гег,  says  Afanasief,  may  fairly  be  derived  from  kost ',  a  bone,  for 
changes  between  si  and  shch  are  not  uncommon — as  in  the  cases  of  pustoi,  waste, 
pushcha,  a  wild  wood,  or  of  gustoi,  thick,  gus/icka,  sediment,  etc.  The  verb  okosten- 
yef ,  to  grow  numb,  describes  the  state  into  which  a  skazka  represents  the  realm  01 
the  "  Sleeping  Beauty,"  as  being  thrown  by  Koshchei.  Buslaef  remarks  in  his  "  In- 
Suence  of  Christianity  on  Slavonic  Language, ';  p.  103,  that  one  of  the  Gothic  words 
used  by  Ulfilas  to  express  the  Greek  Sacu6viov  is  skoksl,  which  "  is  purely  Slavonic, 
being  preserved  in  the  Czekh  kauzlo,  sorcery  ;  in  the  Lower-Lusatian-Wendish,  kostla* 
means  a  sorcerer.  (But  see  Grimm's  "  Deutsche  Mythologie,"  pp.  454-81  where 
skbhsl  is  supposed  to  mean  a  forest-sprite,  also  p.  954.)  Kosf  changes  into  koshch 
whence  our  Koshchei."  There  is  also  a  provincial  word,  kosiif,  meaning  to  revile  n» 
scold. 

X  Bezsmertny  {bez  =  without,  stnerf  =  death). 


M  YTHOL  OGICAL.  97 

bad  no  heart  in  his  body"  in  the  well-known  Norse  tale, 
it  is  something  extraneous  to  the  being  whom  it  affects, 
and  until  it  is  destroyed  he  may  set  all  ordinary  means  of 
annihilation  at  defiance.  But  this  is  not  always  the  case, 
as  may  be  learnt  from  one  of  the  best  of  the  skazkas  in 
which  he  plays  a  leading  part,  the  history  of — 

Marya-Morevna.* 

In  a  certain  kingdom  there  lived  a  Prince  Ivan.  He  had  three 
sisters.  The  first  was  the  Princess  Marya,  the  second  the  Prin- 
cess Olga,  the  third  the  Princess  Anna.  When  their  father  and 
mother  lay  at  the  point  of  death,  they  had  thus  enjoined  their 
son  : — "  Give  your  sisters  in  marriage  to  the  very  first  suitors 
who  come  to  woo  them.     Don't  go  keeping  them  by  you  !  " 

They  died  and  the  Prince  buried  them,  and  then,  to  solace  his 
grief,  he  went  with  his  sisters  into  the  garden  green  to  stroll. 
Suddenly  the  sky  was  covered  by  a  black  cloud  ;  a  terrible  storm 
arose. 

"  Let  us  go  home,  sisters  !  "  he  cried. 

Hardly  had  they  got  into  the  palace,  when  the  thunder 
pealed,  the  ceiling  split  open,  and  into  the  room  where  they  were, 
came  flying  a  falcon  bright.  The  Falcon  smote  upon  the  ground, 
became  a  brave  youth,  and  said  : 

"  Hail,  Prince  Ivan  !  Before  I  came  as  a  guest,  but  now  I 
have  come  as  a  wooer !  I  wish  to  propose  for  your  sister,  the 
Princess  Marya." 

"  If  you  find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  my  sister,  I  will  not  inter- 
fere with  her  wishes.     Let  her  marry  you  in  God's  name  !  " 

The  Princess  Marya  gave  her  consent ;  the  Falcon  married 
her  and  bore  her  awaj  into  his  own  realm. 

Days  follow  days,  hours  chase  hours  ;  a  whole  year  goes  ty. 
One  day  Prince  Ivan  and  his  two  sisters  went  out  to  stroll  in 
the  garden  green.  Again  there  arose  a  stormcloud  with  whirl- 
wind and  lightning. 

*  Afansief,  viii.  No    8.  Л/erevua  means  daughter  of  More,  (the   Sea  or  any  great 
water).  j 


98  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  Let  us  go  home,  sisters  !  "  cried  the  Prince.  Scarcely  had 
they  entered  the  palace,  when  the  thunder  crashed,  the  rooi 
burst  into  a  blaze,  the  ceiling  split  in  twain,  and  in  flew  an  eagle. 
The  Eagle  smote  upon  the  gronnd  and  became  a  brave  youth. 

"  Hail,  Prince  Ivan  !  Before  I  came  as  a  guest,  but  now  I 
have  come  as  a  wooer  !  " 

And  he  asked  for  the  hand  of  the  Princess  Olga.  Prince 
Ivan  replied  : 

"  If  you  find  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  Princess  Olga,  then  let 
her  marry  you.     I  will  not  interfere  with  her  liberty  of  choice." 

The  Princess  Olga  gave  her  consent  and  married  the  Eagle. 
The  Eagle  took  her  and  carried  her  off  to  his  own  kingdom. 

Another  year  went  by.  Prince  Ivan  said  to  his  youngest 
sister : 

"  Let  us  go  out  and  stroll  in  the  garden  green  !  " 

They  strolled  about  for  a  time.  Again  there  arose  a  storm- 
cloud,  with  whirlwind  and  lightning. 

"  Let  us  return  home,  sister  ! "  said  he. 

They  returned  home,  but  they  hadn't  had  time  to  sit  down 
when  the  thunder  *  crashed,  the  ceiling  split  open,  and  in  flew 
a  raven.  The  Raven  smote  upon  the  floor  and  became  a  brave 
youth.  The  former  youths  had  been  handsome,  but  this  one 
was  handsomer  still. 

"Well,  Prince  Ivan!  Before  I  came  as  a  guest,  but  now  [ 
have  come  as  a  wooer.     Give  me  the  Princess  Anna  to  wife." 

"  I  won't  interfere  with  my  sisters  freedom.  If  you  gain  her 
affections,  let  her  marry  you." 

So  the  Princess  Anna  married  the  Raven,  and  he  bore  her 
away  to  his  own  realm.  Prince  Ivan  was  left  alone.  A  whole 
year  he  lived  without  his  sisters ;  then  he  grew  weary,  and 
said : — 

"  I  will  set  out  in  search  of  my  sisters." 

He  got  ready  for  the  journey,  he  rode  and  rode,  and  one  day 
he  saw  a  whole  army  Lying  dead  on  the  plain.     He  cried  aloud, 

*  Grow.  It  is  the  thunder,  rather  than  the  lightning,  which  the  Russian  peasants 
look  upon  as  the  destructive  agent  in  a  storm.  They  let  the  flash  pass  unheeded, 
but  they  take  the  precaution  of  crossing  themselves  when  the  roar  follows. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  »U 

"  If  there  be  a  living  man  there,  let  him  make  answer  !  who  has 
slain  this  mighty  host  ?  " 

There  replied  unto  him  a  living  man: 

"  All  this  mighty  host  has  been  slain  by  the  fair  Princess 
Marya  Morevna." 

Prince  Ivan  rode  further  on,  and  came  to  a  white  tent,  and 
forth  came  to  meet  him  the  fair  Princess  Marya  Morevna. 

"  Hail  Prince  !"  says  she,  "whither  does  God  send  you? 
and  is  it  of  your  free  will  or  against  your  will  ? " 

Prince  Ivan  replied,  "  Not  against  their  will  do  brave  youths 
ride ! " 

"Well,  if  your  business  be  not  pressing,  tarry  awhile  in  my 
tent." 

Thereat  was  Prince  Ivan  glad.  He  spent  two  nights  in  the 
tent,  and  he  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of  Marya  Morevna,  and 
she  married  him.  The  fair  Princess,  Marya  Morevna,  carried 
him  off  into  her  own  realm. 

They  spent  some  time  together,  and  then  the  Princess  took 

it  into  her  head  to  go  a  warring.     So   she  handed  over  all  the 

i 
housekeeping  affairs  to  Prince  Ivan,  and  gave  him  these  instruc- 
tions : 

"  Go  about  everywhere,  keep  watch  over  everything ,  only  do 
not  venture  to  look  into  that  closet  there." 

He  couldn't  help  doing  so.  The  moment  Marya  Morevna 
had  gone  he  rushed  to  the  closet,  pulled  open  the  door,  and 
looked  in — there  hung  Koshchei  the  Deathless,  fettered  by 
twelve  chains.  Then  Koshchei  entreated  Prince  Ivan,  say- 
ing— 

"  Have  pity  upon  me  and  give  me  to  drink !  Ten  years  long 
have  I  been  here  in  torment,  neither  eating  or  drinking;  my 
throat  is  utterly  dried  up. 

The  Prince  gave  him  a  bucketful  of  water ;  he  drank  it  up 
and  asked  for  more,  saying  : 

"  A  single  bucket  of  water  will  not  quench  my  thirst ;  give 
me  more ! " 

The  Prince  gave  him  a  second  bucketful.  Koshchei  drank 
it  up  and  asked  for  a  third,  and  when  he  had  swallowed  the 


100  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

third  bucketful,  he  regained  his  former  strength,  gave  his  chains 
a  shake,  and  broke  all  twelve  at  once. 

"  Thanks,  Prince  Ivan  !  "  cried  Koshchei  the  deathless, 
"now you  will  sooner  see  your  own  ears  than  Marya  Morevna 
and  out  of  the  window  he  flew  in  the  shape  of  a  terrible  whirl- 
wind. And  he  came  up  with  the  fair  Princess  Marya  Morevna 
as  she  was  going  her  way,  laid  hold  of  her,  and  carried  her  off 
home  with  him.  But  Prince  Ivan  wept  full  sore,  and  he  arrayed 
himself  and  set  out  a  wandering,  saying  to  himself  :  "  Whatever 
happens,  I  will  go  and  look  for  Marya  Morevna  !  " 

One  day  passed,  another  day  passed :  at  the  dawn  of  the 
third  day  he  saw  a  wondrous  palace,  and  by  the  side  of  the  pal- 
ace stood  an  oak,  and  on  the  oak  sat  a  falcon  bright.  Down  fiev» 
the  Falcon  from  the  oak,  smote  upon  the  ground,  turned  into  a 
brave  youth  and  cried  aloud  : 

"  Ha,  dear  brother-in-law  !  how  deals  the  Lord  with  you  ?  " 

Out  came  running  the  Princess  Marya,  joyfully  greeted  her 
brother  Ivan,  and  began  enquiring  after  his  health,  and  telling 
him  all  about  herself.  The  Prince  spent  three  days  with  them; 
then  he  said : 

"  I  cannot  abide  with  you ;  I  must  go  in  search  of  my  wife, 
the  fair  Princess  Marya  Morevna." 

"  Hard  will  it  be  for  you  to  find  her,"  answered  the  Falcon. 
"At  all  events  leave  with  us  your  silver  spoon.  We  will  look  at 
it  and  remember  you."  So  Prince  Ivan  left  his  silver  spoon  at 
the  Falcon's,  and  went  on  his  way  again. 

On  he  went  one  day,  on  he  went  another  day,  and  by  the 
dawn  of  the  third  day  he  saw  a  palace  still  grander  than  the  for- 
mer one,  and  hard  by  the  palace  stood  an  oak,  and  on  the  oak 
sat  an  eagle.  Down  flew  the  eagle  from  the  oak,  smote  upon 
the  ground,  turned  into  a  brave  youth,  and  cried  aloud  : 

"  Rise  up,  Princess  Olga!  Hither  comes  our  brother  dear!" 

The  Princess  Olga  immediately  ran  to  meet  him.  and  began 
kissing  him  and  embracing  him,  asking  after  his  health  and  tell- 
ing him  all  about  herself.  With  them  Prince  Ivan  stopped  three 
days  ;  then  he  said  : 

"  I  cannot  stay  here  any  longer.  I  am  going  to  look  for  my 
wife,  the  fair  Princess  Marya  Morevna. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  101 

"  Наг  i  will  it  be  for  you  to  find  her,"  replied  the  Eagle, 
"  Leave  with  us  a  silver  fork.  We  will  look  at  it  and  remember 
you." 

He  left  a  silver  fork  behind,  and  went  his  way.  He  travelled 
one  day,  he  travelled  two  days  ;  at  daybreak  on  the  third  day  he 
saw  a  palace  grander  than  the  first  two,  and  near  the  palace 
stood  an  oak,  and  on  the  oak  sat  a  raven.  Down  flew  the  Raven 
from  the  oak,  smote  upon  the  ground,  turned  into  a  brave  youth, 
and  cried  aloud  : 

"  Princess  Anna,  come  forth  quickly  !  our  brother  is  coming  !  " 

Out  ran  the  Princess  Anna,  greeted  him  joyfully,  and  began 

kissing  and  embracing  him,  asking  after  his  health  and  telling 

him  all  about  herself.  Prince  Ivan  stayed  with  them  three  days  ; 

then  he  said : 

"  Farewell !  I  am  going  to  look  for  my  wife,  the  fair  Princess 
Marya  Morevna." 

"  Hard  will  it  be  for  you  to  find  her,"  replied  the  Raven, 
"  Anyhow,  leave  your  silver  snuff-box  with  us.  We  will  look  at 
it  and  remember  you." 

The  Prince  handed  over  his  silver  snuff-box,  took  his  leave 
and  went  his  way.  One  day  he  went,  another  day  he  went,  and 
on  the  third  day  he  came  to  where  Marya  Morevna  was.  She 
caught  sight  of  her  love,  flung  her  arms  around  his  neck,  burst 
into  tears,  and  exclaimed  : 

"Oh,  Prince  Ivan  !  why  did  you  disobey  me,  and  go  looking 
into  the  closet  and  letting  out  Koshchei  the  Deathless  ?  " 

"  Forgive  me,  Marya  Morevna!  Remember  not  the  past; 
much  better  fly  with  me  while  Koshchei  the  Deathless  is  out  of 
sight.     Perhaps  he  won't  catch  us." 

So  they  got  ready  and  fled.  Now  Koshchei  was  out  hunting 
Towards  evening  he  was  returning  home,  when  his  good  steed 
stumbled  beneath  him. 

"  Why  stumblest  thou,  sorry  jade  ?  scentest  thou  some  ill  ?  " 

The  steed  replied : 

"  Prince  Ivan  has  come  and  carried  off  Marya  Morevna." 

"  Is  it  possible  to  catch  them?  " 

"  Is  it  possible  to  sow  wheat,  to  wait  till  it  grows  up,  to  reap 


102  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

it  and  thresh  it,  to  grind  it  to  flour,  to  make  five  pies  of  it,  to 
eat  those  pies,  and  then  to  start  in  pursuit — and  even  then  to  be 
in  time." 

Koshchei  galloped  off  and  caught  up  Prince  Ivan. 

"  Now,"  says  he,  "  this  time  I  will  forgive  you,  in  return  for 
your  kindness  in  giving  me  water  to  drink.  And  a  second  time 
I  will  forgive  you  ;  but  the  third  time  beware  !  I  will  cut  you  to 
bits." 

Then  he  took  Marya  Morevna  from  him,  and  carried  her  off. 
But  Princt  Ivan  sat  down  on  a  stone  and  burst  into  tears.  He 
wept  and  wept — and  then  returned  back  again  to  Marya  Morev- 
na.    Now  Koshchei  the  Deathless  happened  not  to  be  at  home 

"  Let  us  fly,  Marya  Morevna!  " 

"  Ah,  Prince  Ivan  !  he  will  catch  us." 

"  Suppose  he  does  catch  us.  At  all  events  we  shall  have 
spent  an  hour  or  two  together." 

So  they  got  ready  and  fled.  As  Koshchei  the  Deathless  was 
returning  home,  his  good  steed  stumbled  beneath  him. 

"  Why  stumblest  thou,  sorry  jade  ?  Scentest  thou  some 
ill  ?  " 

"  Prince  Ivan  has  come  and  carried  off  Marya  Morevna." 

"  Is  it  possible  to  catch  them  ?  " 

"  It  is  possible  to  sow  barley,  to  wait  till  it  grows  up,  to  reap 
it  and  thresh  it,  to  brew  beer,  to  drink  ourselves  drunk  on  it, 
to  sleep  our  fill,  and  then  to  set  off  in  pursuit — and  yet  to  be  in 
time." 

Koshchei  galloped  off,  caught  up  Prince  Ivan  : 

"  Didn't  I  tell  you  that  you  should  not  see  Marya  Morev- 
na any  more  than  your  own  ears  ? " 

And  he  took  her  away  and  carried  her  off  home  with  him. 

Prince  Ivan  was  left  there  alone.  He  wept  and  wept ;  then 
he  went  back  again  after  Marya  Morevna.  Koshchei  happened 
to  be  away  from  home  at  that  moment. 

"  Let  us  fly,  Marya  Morevna." 

"  Ah,  Prince  Ivan !  He  is  sure  to  catch  us  and  hew  you  in 
pieces." 

"  Let  him  hew  away  !  I  cannot  live  without  you." 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  103 

So  they  got  ready  and  fled. 

Koshchei  the  Deathless  was  returning  home  when  his  good 
steed  stumbled  beneath  him. 

"  Why  stumblest  thou  ?  scentest  thou  any  ill  ?  " 

"  Prince  Ivan  has  come  and  has  carried  off  Marya  Morevna." 

Koshchei  galloped  off,  caught  Prince  Ivan,  chopped  him  into 
ltttle  pieces,  put  them  in  a  barrel,  smeared  it  with  pitch  and 
bound  it  with  iron  hoops,  and  flung  it  into  the  blue  sea.  But 
Marya  Morevna  he  carried  off  home. 

At  that  very  time,  the  silver  turned  black  which  Prince  Ivan 
had  left  with  his  brothers-in-law. 

"  Ah  !  "  said  they,  "  the  evil  is  accomplished  sure  enough  !  " 

Then  the  Eagle  hurried  to  the  blue  sea,  caught  hold  of  the 
barrel,  and  dragged  it  ashore ;  the  Falcon  flew  away  for  the 
Water  of  Life,  and  the  Raven  for  the  Water  of  Death. 

Afterwards  they  all  three  met,  broke  open  the  barrel,  took  out 
the  remains  of  Prince  Ivan,  washed  them,  and  put  them  together 
in  fitting  order.  The  Raven  sprinkled  them  with  the  Water  of 
Death — the  pieces  joined  together,  the  body  became  whole.  The 
Falcon  sprinkled  it  with  the  Water  of  Life — Prince  Ivan  shud- 
dered, stood  up,  and  said  : 

"  Ah  !  what  a  time  I've  been  sleeping  !  " 

"  You'd  have  gone  on  sleeping  a  good  deal  longer,  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  us,"  replied  his  brothers-in-law.  "  Now  come  and  pay 
us  a  visit." 

"Not  so,  brothers  ;  I  shall  go  and  look  for  Marya  Morevna." 

And  when  he  had  found  her,  he  said  to  her  : 

"  Find  out  from  Koshchei  the  Deathless  whence  he  got  so 
good  a  steed." 

So  Marya  Morevna  chose  a  favorable  moment,  and  began 
asking  Koshchei  about  it.     Koshchei  replied  : 

"  Beyond  thrice  nine  lands,  in  the  thirtieth  kingdom,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  fiery  river,  there  lives  a  Baba  Yaga.  She  has 
so  good  a  mare  that  she  flies  right  round  the  world  on  it  every 
day.  And  she  has  many  other  splendid  mares.  I  watched  her 
herds  for  three  days  without  losing  a  single  mare,  and  in  return 
for  that  the  Baba  Yaga  gave  me  a  foal." 


104  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  But  how  did  you  get  across  the  fiery  river  ?  " 

"  Why,  I've  a  handkerchief  of  this  kind — when  1  wave  it 
thrice  on  the  right  hand,  there  springs  up  a  very  lofty  bridge  and 
the  fire  cannot  reach  it." 

Marya  Morevna  listened  to  all  this,  and  repeated  it  to  Prince 
Ivan,  and  she  carried  off  the  handkerchief  and  gave  it  to  him. 
So  he  managed  to  get  across  the  fiery  river,  and  then  went  on  to 
the  Baba  Yaga's.  Long  went  he  on  without  getting  anything 
either  to  eat  or  to  drink.  At  last  he  came  across  an  outlandish  * 
bird  and  its  young  ones.     Says  Prince  Ivan  : 

"  I'll  eat  one  of  these  chickens." 

"Don't  eat  it,  Prince  Ivan!"  begs  the  outlandish  bird; 
"  some  time  or  other  I'll  do  you  a  good  turn." 

He  went  on  farther  and  saw  a  hive  of  bees  in  the  forest. 

"  I'll  get  a  bit  of  honeycomb,"  says  he. 

"  Don't  disturb  my  honey,  Prince  Ivan  ! "  exclaims  the  queen 
bee ;  "  some  time  or  other  I'll  do  you  a  good  turn." 

So  he  didn't  disturb  it,  but  went  on.  Presently  there  met 
him  a  lioness  with  her  cub. 

"Anyhow  I'll  eat  this  lion  cub,"  says  he  ;  "  I'm  so  hungry,  I 
feel  quite  unwell !  " 

"Please  let  us  alone,  Prince  Ivan  "  begs  the  lioness  ;  "  some 
time  or  other  I'll  do  you  a  good  turn." 

"  Very  well ;  have  it  your  own  way,"  says  he. 

Hungry  and  faint  he  wandered  on,  walked  farther  and,  farther 
<md  at  last  came  to  where  stood  the  house  of  the  Baba  Yaga. 
Round  the  house  were  set  twelve  poles  in  a  circle,  and  on  each 
of  eleven  of  these  poles  was  stuck  a  human  head,  the  twelfth 
alone  remained  unoccupied. 

"  Hail,  granny !  " 

"  Hail,  Prince  Ivan  !  wherefore  have  you  come  ?  Is  it  of  your 
own  accord,  or  on  compulsion  ? " 

"  I  have  come  to  earn  from  you  a  heroic  steed." 

"  So  be  it,  Prince  you  won't  have  to  serve  a  year  with  me,  but 
just  three  days.  If  you  take  good  care  of  my  mares,  I '11  give  you 
a  heroic  steed.     But  if  you  don't — why  then  you  mustn't  be 

*    7.uinorskaya,  from  ihe  other  side  of  the  water,  strange,  splendid. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  105 

annoyed  at  finding  your  head  stuck  on  top  of  the  last  pole  up 
there." 

Prince  Ivan  agreed  to  these  terms.  The  Baba  Yaga  gave 
him  food  and  drink,  and  bid  him  set  about  his  business.  But  the 
moment  he  had  driven  the  mares  afield,  they  cocked  up  their 
tails,  and  away  they  tore  across  the  meadows  in  all  directions. 
Before  the  Prince  had  time  to  look  round,  they  were  all  out  of 
sight.  Thereupon  he  began  to  weep  and  to  disquiet  himself,  and 
then  he  sat  down  upon  a  stone  and  went  to  sleep.  But  when  the 
sun  was  near  its  setting,  the  outlandish  bird  came  flying  up  to  him, 
and  awakened  him  saying : — 

"  Arise,  Prince  Ivan  !  the  mares  are  at  home  now." 

The  Prince  arose  and  returned  home.  There  the  Baba  Yaga 
was  storming  and  raging  at  her  mares,  and  shrieking  : — 

"  Whatever  did  ye  come  home  for  ?  " 

"  Нолу  could  we  help  coming  home?"  said  they.  "There 
came  flying  birds  from  every  part  of  the  world,  and  all  but  pecked 
our  eyes  out." 

"  Well,  well !  to-morrow  don't  go  galloping  over  the  meadows, 
but  disperse  amid  the  thick  forests." 

Prince  Ivan  slept  all  night.  In  the  morning  the  Baba  Yaga 
says  to  him  : — 

"  Mind,  Prince  !  if  you  don't  take  good  care  of  the  mares,  if 
you  lose  merely  one  of  them — your  bold  head  will  be  stuck  on 
that  pole  ! " 

He  drove  the  mares  afield.  Immediately  they  cocked  up  their 
tails  and  dispersed  among  the  thick  forests.  Again  did  the 
Prince  sit  down  on  the  stone,  weep  and  weep,  and  then  go  to 
sleep.  The  sun  went  down  behind  the  forest.  Up  came  run- 
ning the  lioness. 

"  Arise,  Prince  Ivan  !     The  mares  are  all  collected." 

Prince  Ivan  arose  and  went  home.  More  than  ever  did  the 
Baba  Yaga  storm  at  her  mares  and  shriek : — 

"Whatever  did  ye  come  back  home  for  ?  " 

"  How  could  we  help  coming  back  ?  Beasts  of  prey  came 
running  at  us  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  all  but  tore  us  utterly 
to  pieces." 


10G  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

11  Well,  to-morrow  run  off  into  the  blue  sea." 

Again  did  Prince  Ivan  sleep  through  the  night.  Next  morn- 
ing the  Baba  Yaga  sent  him  forth  to  watch  the  mares : 

"  If  you  don't  take  good  care  of  them,"  says  she,  "  your  bold 
head  will  be  stuck  on  that  pole !  " 

H;  drove  the  mares  afield.  Immediately  they  cocked  up 
their  tails,  disappeared  from  sight,  and  fled  into  the  blue  sea. 
There  they  stood,  up  to  their  necks  in  water.  Prince  Ivan  sat 
down  on  the  stone,  wept,  and  fell  asleep.  But  when  the  sun  had 
set  behind  the  forest,  up  came  flying  a  bee  and  said  : — 

"  Arise,  Prince !  The  mares  are  all  collected.  But  when 
you  get  home,  don't  let  the  Baba  Yaga  set  eyes  on  you,  but  go 
into  the  stable  and  hide  behind  the  mangers.  There  you  will 
find  a  sorry  colt  rolling  in  the  muck.  Do  you  steal  it,  and  at 
the  dead  of  night  ride  away  from  the  house." 

Prince  Ivan  arose,  slipped  into  the  stable,  and  lay  down  be- 
hind the  mangers,  while  the  Baba  Yaga  was  storming  away  at 
her  mares  and  shrieking : — 

"  Why  did  ye  come  back  ?  " 

"  How  could  we  help  coming  back  ?  There  came  flying  bees 
in  countless  numbers  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  began 
stinging  us  on  all  sides  till  the  blood  came  !  " 

The  Baba  Yaga  went  to  sleep.  In  the  dead  of  the  night 
Prince  Ivan  stole  the  sorry  colt,  saddled  it,  jumped  on  its  back, 
and  galloped  away  to  the  fiery  river.  When  he  came  to  that  river 
he  waved  the  handkerchief  three  times  on  the  right  hand,  and 
suddenly,  springing  goodness  knows  whence,  there  hung  across 
the  river,  high  in  the  air,  a  splendid  bridge.  The  Prince  rode 
across  the  bridge  and  waved  the  handkerchief  twice  only  on  the 
left  hand  ;  there  remained  across  the  river  a  thin — ever  so  thin 
a  bridge ! 

When  the  Baba  Yaga  got  up  in  the  morning,  the  sorry  colt 
was  not  to  be  seen !  Off  she  set  in  pursuit.  At  full  speed  did 
she  fly  in  her  iron  mortar,  urging  it  on  with  the  pestle,  sweeping 
away  her  traces  with  the  broom.  She  dashed  up  to  the  fiery 
river,  gave  a  glance,  and  said,  "  A  capital  bridge  !  "  She  drove 
on  to  the  bridge,  but  had  only  got  half-way  when  the  bridge 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  107 

broke  in  two,  and  .he  Baba  Yaga  went  flop  into  the  river.  There 
truly  did  she  mee;  with  a  cruel  death  ! 

Prince  Ivan  fattened  up  the  colt  in  the  green  meadows,  and 
it  turned  into  a  wondrous  steed.  Then  he  rode  to  where  Marya 
Morevna  was.  She  came  running  out,  and  flung  herself  on  his 
neck,  crying : — 

"  By  what  means  has  God  brought  you  back  to  life  ?  " 

"  Thus  and  thus,"  says  he.    "  Now  come  along  with  me." 

"  I  am  afraid,  Prince  Ivan  !  If  Koshchei  catches  us,  you  will 
be  cut  in  pieces  again." 

"  No,  he  won't  catch  us  !  I  have  a  splendid  heroic  steed  now ; 
it  flies  just  like  a  bird."  So  they  got  on  its  back  and  rode 
away. 

Koshchei  the  Deathless  was  returning  home  when  his  horse 
stumbled  beneath  him. 

"  What  art  thou  stumbling  for,  sorry  jade  ?  dost  thou  scent 
any  ill  ? " 

"  Prince  Ivan  has  come  and  carried  off  Marya  Morevna." 

"  Can  we  catch  them  ? " 

"  God  knows  !  Prince  Ivan  has  a  horse  now  which  is  better 
than  I." 

"  Well,  I  can't  stand  it,"  says  Koshchei  the  Deathless.  "  I 
will  pursue." 

After  a  time  he  came  up  with  Prince  Ivan,  lighted  on  the 
ground,  and  was  going  to  chop  him  up  with  his  sharp  sword. 
But  at  that  moment  Prince  Ivan's  horse  smote  Koshchei  the 
Deathless  full  swing  with  its  hoof,  and  cracked  his  skull,  and  the 
Prince  made  an  end  of  him  with  a  club.  Afterwards  the  Prince 
heaped  up  a  pile  of  wood,  set  fire  to  it,  burnt  Koshchei  the 
Deathless  on  the  pyre,  and  scattered  his  ashes  to  the  wind. 
Then  Marya  Morevna  mounted  Koshchei's  horse  and  Prince  Ivan 
got  on  his  own,  and  they  rode  away  to  visit  first  the  Raven,  and 
then  the  Eagle,  and  then  the  Falcon.  Wherever  they  went  they 
met  with  a  joyful  greeting. 

"Ah,  Prince  Ivan!  why  we  never  expected  to  seeyouaga'n. 
Well,  it  wasn't  for  nothing  that  you  gave  yourself  so  much  trouble. 


103  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Such  a  beauty  as  Marya  Morevna  one  might  search  for  all  the 
world  over — and  never  find  one  like  her !  " 

And  so  they  visited,  and  they  feasted ;  and  afterwards  they 
went  off  to  their  own  realm.* 

With  the  Baba  Yaga,  the  feminine  counterpart  of  Kosh- 
chei  and  the  Snake,  we  shall  deal  presently,  and  the  Waters 
of  Life  and  Death  will  find  special  notice  elsewhere. f  A 
magic  water,  which  brings  back  the  dead  to  life,  plays  a 
prominent  part  in  the  folk-lore  of  all  lands,  but  the  two 
waters,  each  performing  one  part  only  of  the  cure,,  render 
very  noteworthy  the  Slavonic  stories  in  which  they  occur. 
The  Princess,  Marya  Morevna,  who  slaughters  whole  armies 
before  she  is  married,  and  then  becomes  mild  and  gentle, 
belongs  to  a  class  of  heroines  who  frequently  occur  both 
in  the  stories  and  in  the  "  metrical  romances,"  and  to  whom 
may  be  applied  the  remarks  made  by  Kemble  with  refer- 
ence to  a  similar  Amazon.  %  In  one  of  the  variants  of  the 
story  the  representative  of  Marya  Morevna  fights  the  hero 
before  she  marries  him.  §  The  Bluebeard  incident  of  the 
forbidden  closet  is  one  which  often  occurs  in  the  Skazkas, 
as  we  shall  see  further  on  ;  and  the  same  may  be  said 
about  the  gratitude  of  the  Bird,  Bee,  and  Lioness. 

*  In  Afanasief,  i-v.  No.  39,  a  father  marries  his  three  daughters  to  the  Sun,  the 
Moon,  and  the  Raven.  In  Hahn,  No.  25,  a  younger  brother  gives  his  sis'ers  in 
marriage  to  a  Lion,  a  Tiger,  and  an  Eagle,  after  his  elder  brothers  have  refused  to  do 
so.  By  their  aid  he  recovers  his  lost  bride.  In  Schott,  No.  1  and  Vuk  Karajich,  No. 
5,  the  three  sisters  are  carried  off  by  Dragons,  which  their  subsequently-born  b-othei 
kills.  (See  also  Basile,  No.  33,  referred  to  by  Hahn,  and  Valjavec,  p.  1,  Stiei,  No. 
13,  and  Bozena  Nemcova,  pp.  414-432,  and  a  German  story  in  Musseus,  all  referred 
to  by  Afanasief,  viii.  p.  662.) 

t  See  Chap.  IV. 

t  "  Being  by  the  advice  of  her  father  Нггес?  given  in  marriage  to  Offa,  she  left  ой 
her  violent  practices  ;  and  accordingly  she  appears  in  Hygelac's  court,  exercising  the 
peaceful  duties  of  a  princess.  Now  this  whole  representation  can  hardly  be  other 
than  the  modern,  altered,  and  Christian  one  of  a  Waelcyrie  or  Swan-Maiden  ;  and 
almost  in  the  same  words  the  Nibelungen  Lied  relates  of  Brynhild,  the  flashing  shield- 
may  of  the  Edda,  that  with  her  virginity  she  lost  her  mighty  strength  and  warlike 
habits." — Kemble's  Beowulf,  p.  xxxv. 

5   Khudyakof,  ii,  p.  go. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  Ю9 

The  story  of  Immortal  Koshchei  is  one  of  very  frequent 
occurrence,  the  different  versions  maintaining  a  unity  of 
idea,  but  varying  considerably  in  detail.  In  one  of  them,  * 
in  which  Koshchei's  part  is  played  by  a  Snake,  the  hero's 
sisters  are  carried  off  by  their  feathered  admirers  without 
his  leave  being  asked — an  omission  for  which  a  full  apology 
is  afterwards  made  ;  in  another,  the  history  of  "  Fedor 
Tugarin  and  Anastasia  the  Fair,"  f  the  hero's  three  sisters 
are  wooed  and  won,  not  by  the  Falcon,  the  Eagle,  and  the 
Raven,  but  by  the  Wind,  the  Hail,  and  the  Thunder.  He 
himself  marries  the  terrible  heroine  Anastasia  the  Fair,  in 
the  forbidden  chamber  of  whose  palace  he  finds  a  snake 
"hung  up  by  one  of  its  ribs."  He  gives  it  a  lift  and  it 
gets  free  from  its  hook  and  flies  away,  carrying  off  Anas- 
tasia the  Fair.  Fedor  eventually  finds  her,  escapes  with 
her  on  a  magic  foal  which  he  obtains,  thanks  to  the  aid  of 
grateful  wolves,  bees,  and  crayfish,  and  destroys  the  snake 
by  striking  it  "  on  the  forehead  "  with  the  stone  which  was 
destined  to  be  its  death.  In  a  third  version  of  the  story,  % 
the  hero  finds  in  the  forbidden  chamber  "  Koshchei  the 
Deathless,  in  a  cauldron  amid  flames,  boiling  in  pitch." 
There  he  has  been,  he  declares,  for  fifteen  years,  having 
been  lured  there  by  the  beauty  of  Anastasia  the  Fair.  In 
a  fourth,  §  in  which  the  hero's  three  sisters  marry  three 
beggars,  who  turn  out  to  be  snakes  with  twenty,  thirty,  and 
forty  heads  apiece,  Koshchei  is  found  in  the  forbidden 
chamber,  seated  on  a  horse  which  is  chained  to  a  cauldron. 
He  begs  the  hero  to  unloose  the  horse,  promising,  in  return, 
to  save  him  from  three  deaths. 

[Into  the  mystery  of  the  forbidden  chamber  I  will  not  enter  fully  at  present. 
Suffire  to  say  that  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  its  being  the  same  as  that  in  which 
Bluebeard  kept  the  corpses  of  his  dead  wives.     In  the  Russian,  as  well  as  in  the 

*  Khudyakof,  N.  200.  t  Afanasief,  i.  No.  14. 

X  Khudyakof,  No.  62.  §  Erlenvein,  No-  31. 


110  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Oriental  stories,  it  is  generally  the  curiosity  of  a  man,  not  of  a  woman,  which  leads  to 
the  opening  of  the  prohibited  room.  In  the  West  of  Europe  the  fatal  inquisi'iveness 
is  more  frequentlyascribed  to  a  woman.  For  parallels  see  the  German  stories  of 
"Marienkind,"  and  "  Fitchers  Vogel."  (Grimm,  К,  M.,  Nos.  3  and  46,  also  the 
notes  in  Bd.  iii.  pp.  8,  76,  324.)  Less  familiar  than  these  is,  probably,  the  story  of 
"Die  eisernen  Stiefel "  (Wolf's  "  Deutsche  Hausmarchen,"  1S51,  No.  iq),  in  which 
the  hero  opens  a  forbidden  door — that  of  a  summer-house — and  sees  deep  down 
below  him  the  earth,  and  on  the  earth  his  father's  palace,"  and  is  seized  by  a  sudden 
longing  after  his  former  home.  The  Wallachian  story  of  "  The  Immnred  Mother  " 
(Schott,  No.  2)  resembles  Grimm's  "  Marienkind  "  in  many  points.  But  its  forbidden 
chamber  differs  from  that  of  the  German  tale.  In  the  latter  the  rash  intruder  sees 
"die  Dreieinigkeit  im  Feuer  und  Glanz  sitzen  ;  "  in  the  former,  ''the  Holy  Mother 
of  God  healing  the  wounds  of  her  Son,  the  Lord  Christ."  In  the  Neapolitan  story 
of  "  Le  tre  Corune"  (Pentamerone,  No.  36),  the  forbidden  chamber  contains  "three 
maidens,  clothed  all  in  gold,  sitting  and  seeming  to  slumber  upon  as  many  thrones  " 
(Liebrecht's  translation,  ii.  76).  The  Esthonian  tale  of  the  "  Wife-murderer  "  (Lowe's 
"  Ehstnische  Marchen,"  No.  20)  is  remarkably — not  to  say  suspiciously — like  that 
French  story  of  Blue  Beard  which  has  so  often,  made  our  young  blood  run  cold. 
Sister  Anne  is  represented,  and  so  are  the  rescuing  brothers,  the  latter  in  the  person 
of  the  heroine's  old  friend  and  playmate,  Tonnis  the  goose-herd.  Several  very  curious 
Gaelic  versions  of  the  story  are  given  by  Mr.  Campbell  ("Tales  of  the  West  High- 
lands," No.  41,  ii.  265-275).  Two  of  the  three  daughters  of  a  poor  widow  look  into  a 
forbidden  chamber,  find  it  "  full  of  dead  gentlewomen,"  get  stained  knee-deep  in 
blood,  and  refuse  to  give  a  drop  of  milk  to  a  cat  which  offers  its  services.  So  their 
heads  are  chopped  off.  The  third  daughter  makes  friends  with  the  cat,  which  licks 
off  the  tell-tale  blood,  so  she  escapes  detection.  In  a  Greek  story  (Hahn,  ii.  p.  197) 
the  hero  discovers  in  the  one-and-fortieth  room  of  a  castle  belonging  to  a  Drakos, 
who  had  given  him  leave  to  enter  forty  only,  a  magic  horse,  and  before  the  door  of 
the  room  he  finds  a  pool  of  gold  in  which  he  becomes  gilded.  In  another  (Hahn,  No. 
15)  a  prince  finds  in  the  forbidden  fortieth  a  lake  in  which  faries  of  the  swan-maiden 
species  are  bathing.  In  a  third  (No.  45)  the  fortieth  room  contains  a  golden  horse 
and  a  golden  dog  which  assist  their  bold  releaser.  In  a  fourth  (No.  6S)  it  imprisons 
"a  fair  maiden,  shining  like  the  sun,"  whom  the  demon  proprietor  of  the  castle  has 
hung  up  within  it  by  her  hair. 

As  usual,  all  these  stories  are  hard  to  understand.  But  one  of  the  most  important 
of  their  Oriental  equivalents  is  perfectly  intelligible.  When  Saktideva,  in  the  fifth 
book  of  the  "  Kathasaritsagara,"  comes  after  long  travel  to  the  Golden  City,  and  is 
welcomed  as  her  destined  husband  by  its  princess,  she  warns  him  not  to  ascend  the 
central  terrace  of  her  palace.  Of  course  he  does  so,  and  finds  three  chambers,  in 
each  of  which  lies  the  lifeless  form  of  a  fair  maiden.  After  gazing  at  these  seeming 
corpses,  in  one  of  which  he  recognizes  his  first  love,  he  approaches  a  horse  which  is 
grazing  beside  a  lake.  The  horse  kicks  him  into  the  water  ;  he  sinks  deep— and 
comes  up  again  in  his  native  land.  The  whole  of  the  story  is,  towards  its  termination 
fully  explained  by  one  of  its  principal  characters — one  of  the  four  maidens  whoro 
Saktideva  simultaneously  marries.  With  the  version  of  this  romance  in  the  "  Arabiaa 
Nights"  ("  History  of  the  Third  Royal  Mendicant,"  Lane,  i.  160-173),  everyone  is 
doubtless  acquainted.  A  less  familiar  story  is  that  of  Kandarpaketu,  in  the  second 
book  of  the  "  Hitopadesa,"  who  lives  happily  for  a  time  as  the  husband  of  the  beauti- 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  Ill 

ful  semi-divine  queen  of  the  Golden  City.  At  last,  contrary  to  her  express  commands, 
he  ventures  to  touch  a  picture  of  a  Vidyadharf.  In  an  instant  the  pictured  demigod» 
dess  gives  him  a  kick  which  sends  him  flying  back  into  his  own  country. 

For  an  explanation  of  the  myth  which  lies  at  the  root  of  all  these  stories,  see  Cox's 
"  Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Nations,"  ii.  36,  330.  See  also  Professor  de  Gubernatis's 
"Zoological  Mythology,"  i.  16S.] 

We  will  now  take  one  of  those  versions  of  the  story 
which  describe  how  Koshchei's  death  is  brought  about  by 
the  destruction  of  that  extraneous  object  on  which  his 
existence  depends.  The  incident  is  one  which  occupies  a 
prominent  place  in  the  stories  of  this  class  current  in  all 
parts  of  Europe  and  Asia,  and  its  result  is  almost  always 
the  same.  But  the  means  by  which  that  result  is  brought 
about  differ  considerably  in  different  lands.  In  the  Rus- 
sian tales  the  "death  "  of  the  Evil  Being  with  whom  the 
hero  contends — the  substance,  namely,  the  destruction  of 
which  involves  his  death — is  usually  the  last  of  a  sequence 
of  objects  either  identical  with,  or  closely  resembling,  those 
mentioned  in  the  following  story  of — 

Koshchei  the  Deathless.* 

In  a  certain  country  there  once  lived  a  king,  and  he  had  three 
sons,  all  of  them  grown  up.  All  of  a  sudden  Koshchei  the 
Deathless  carried  off  their  mother.  Then  the  eldest  son  craved 
his  father's  blessing,  that  he  might  go  and  look  for  his  mother. 
His  father  gave  him  his  blessing,  and  he  went  off  and  disappear- 
ed, leaving  no  trace  behind.  The  second  son  waited  and  waited, 
then  he  too  obtained  his  father's  blessing — and  he  also  disap- 
peared. Then  the  youngest  son,  Prince  Ivan,  said  to  his  father : 
"  Father,  give  me  your  blessing,  and  let  me  go  and  look  for  my 
mother." 

But  his  father  would  not  let  him  go,  saying,  "  Your  brothers 
are  no  moie  ;  if  you  likewise  go  away,  I  shall  die  of  grief." 

"  Not  so,  father.  But  if  you  bless  me  I  shall  go ;  and  if  you 
do  not  bless  me  I  shall  go." 

*  Afanasief,  ii.  No.  24.     From  the  Perm  Government. 


112  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

So  his  father  gave  him  his  blessing. 

Prince  Ivan  went  to  choose  a  steed,  but  every  one  that  he 
laid  his  hand  upon  gave  way  under  it.  He  could  not  find  a  steed 
to  suit  him,  so  he  wandered  with  drooping  brow  along  the  road 
and  about  the  town.  Suddenly  there  appeared  an  old  woman, 
who  asked : 

"  Why  hangs  your  brow  so  low,  Prince  Ivan  ?  " 

"  Be  off,  old  crone,"  he  replied.  "  If  I  put  you  on  one  cf  my 
hands,  and  give  it  a  slap  with  the  other,  there'll  be  a  little  wet 
left,  that's  all."  * 

The  old  woman  ran  down  a  by-street,  came  to  meet  him  a 
second  time,  and  said  : 

"  Good  day,  Prince  Ivan  !  why  hangs  your  brow  so  low  ? ' 

Then  he  thought : 

"  Why  does  this  old  woman  ask  me  ?  Mightn't  she  be  of 
use  to  me  ? " — and  he  replied  : 

"  Well,  mother !  because  I  cannot  get  myself  a  good  steed." 

"  Silly  fellow !  "  she  cried,  "  to  suffer,  and  not  to  ask  the  old 
woman's  help  !     Come  along  with  me." 

She  took  him  to  a  hill,  showed  him  a  certain  spot,  and  said: 

"  Dig  up  that  piece  of  ground." 

Prince  Ivan  dug  it  up  and  saw  an  iron  plate  with  twelve  pad- 
locks on  it.  He  immediately  broke  off  the  padlocks,  tore  open 
a  door,  and  followed  a  path  leading  underground.  There, 
fastened  with  twelve  chains,  stood  a  heroic  steed  which  evidently 
heard  the  approaching  steps  of  a  rider  worthy  to  mount  it,  and 
so  began  to  neigh  and  to  struggle,  until  it  broke  all  twelve  of  its 
chains.  Then  Prince  Ivan  put  on  armor  fit  for  a  hero,  and 
bridled  the  horse,  and  saddled  it  with  a  Circassian  saddle.  And 
he  gave  the  old  woman  money,  and  said  to  her : 

"  Forgive  me,  mother,  and  bless  me  !  "  then  he  mounted  his 
steed  and  rode  away. 

Long  time  did  he  ride  ;  at  last  he  came  to  a  mountain — a 
tremendously  high  mountain,  and  so  steep  that  it  was  utterly 
impossible  to  get  up  it.  Presently  his  brothers  came  that  way. 
They  all  greeted  each  other,  and  rode  on  together,  till  they  came 

•  A  conventional  expression  of  contempt  which  frequently  occurs  in  the   Skazka». 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  113 

to  an  iron  rock*  a  hundred  and  fifty  poods  in  weight,  and  on  it 
was  this  inscription,  ''Whosoever  will  fling  this  rock  against 
the  mountain,  to  him  will  a  way  be  opened."  The  two  elder 
brothers  were  unable  to  lift  the  rock,  but  Prince  Ivan  at  the 
first  try  flung  it  against  the  mountain — and  immediately  there 
appeared  a  ladder  leading  up  the  mountain  side. 

Prince  Ivan  dismounted,  let  some  drops  of  blood  run  from 
his  little  finger  into  a  glass,  gave  it  to  his  brothers,  and  said  : 

"  If  the  blood  in  this  glass  turns  black,  tarry  here  no  longer  : 
that  will  mean  that  I  am  about  to  die."  Then  he  took  leave  of 
them  and  went  his  way. 

He  mounted  the  hill.  What  did  not  he  see  there  ?  All 
sorts  of  trees  were  there,  all  sorts  of  fruits,  all  sorts  of  birds  ! 
Long  did  Prince  Ivan  walk  on  ;  at  last  he  came  to  a  house,  a 
huge  house  !  In  it  lived  a  king's  daughter  who  had  been  carried 
off  by  Koshchei  the  Deathless.  Prince  Ivan  walked  round  the 
enclosure,  but  could  not  see  any  doors.  The  king's  daughter 
saw  there  was  some  one  there,  came  on  to  the  balcony,  and 
called  out  to  him,  "  See,  there  is  a  chink  in  the  enclosure  ;  touch 
it  with  your  little  finger,  and  it  will  become  a  door." 

What  she  said  turned  out  to  be  true.  Prince  Ivan  went  into 
the  house,  and  the  maiden  received  him  kindly,  gave  him  to  eat 
and  to  drink,  and  then  began  to  question  him.  He  told  her  how 
he  had  come  to  rescue  his  mother  from  Koshchei  the  Deathless. 
Then  the  maiden  said: 

"  It  will  be  difficult  for  you  to  get  at  your  mother,  Prince 
Ivan.  You  see,  Koshchei  is  not  mortal :  he  will  kill  you.  He 
often  comes  here  to  see  me.  There  is  his  sword,  fifty  poods  in 
weight.     Can  you  lift  it  ?     If  so,  you  may  venture  to  go." 

Not  only  did  Prince  Ivan  lift  the  sword,  but  he  tossed  it 
high  in  the  air.     So  he  went  on  his  way  again. 

By-arid-by  he  came  to  a  second  house.  He  knew  now  where 
to  look  for  the  door,  and  he  entered  in.  There  was  hi-s  mother. 
With  tears  did  they  embrace  each  other. 

Here  also  did  he  try  his  strength,  heaving  aloft  a  ball  which 
weighed   some   fifteen    hundred  poods.      The  time   came    foi 

*  Do  chiguimova  kaimtya,  to  an  iron  stone. 


114  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Koshchei  the  Deathless  to  arrive.  The  mother  hid  away  her 
son.  Suddenly  Koshchei  the  Deathless  entered  the  house  and 
cried  out,  "  Phou,  Phou  !  A  Russian  bone*  one  usen't  to  hear 
with  one's  ears,  or  see  with  one's  eyes,  but  now  a  Russian  bone 
has  come  to  the  house  !  Who  has  been  with  you  ?  Wasn't  it 
your  son  ?  " 

"  What  are  you  talking  about,  God  bless  you  !  You've  been 
flying  through  Russia,  and  got  the  air  up  your  nostrils,  that's 
why  you  fancy  it's  here,"  answered  Prince  Ivan's  mother,  and 
then  she  drew  nigh  to  Koshchei,  addressed  him  in  terms  of 
affection,  asked  him  about  one  thing  and  another,  and  at  last 
said  : 

"Whereabouts  is  your  death,  О  Koshchei  ?  " 

"  My  death,"  he  replied,  "is  in  such  a  place.  There  stands 
an  oak,  and  under  the  oak  is  a  casket,  and  in  the  casket  is  a 
hare,  and  in  the  hare  is  a  duck,  and  in  the  duck  is  an  egg,  and 
in  the  egg  is  my  death." 

Having  thus  spoken,  Koshchei  the  Deathless  tarried  there  a 
little  longer,  and  then  flew  away. 

The  time  came — Prince  Ivan  received  his  mother's  blessing, 
and  went  to  look  for  Koshchei's  death.  He  went  on  his  way  a 
long  time  without  eating  or  drinking;  at  last  he  felt  mortally 
hungry,  and  thought,  "  If  only  something  would  come  my  way ! " 
Suddenly  there  appeared  a  young  wolf ;  he  determined  to  kill 
it.  But  out  from  a  hole  sprang  the  she  wolf,  and  said,  "  Don't 
hurt  my  little  one  ;  I'll  do  you  a  good  turn."  Very  good !  Prince 
Ivan  let  the  young  wolf  go.  On  he  went  and  saw  a  crow. 
"  Stop  a  bit,"  he  thought,  "  here  I  shall  get  a  mouthful."  He 
loaded  his  gun  and  was  going  to  shoot,  but  the  crow  exclaimed, 
"  Don't  hurt  me  ;  I'll  do  you  a  good  turn." 

Prince  Ivan  thought  the  matter  over  and  spared  the  crow. 
Then  he  went  farther,  and  came  to  a  sea  and  stood  still  on  the 
shore.  At  that  moment  a  young  pike  suddenly  jumped  out  of 
the  water  and  fell  on  the  strand.  He  caught  hold  of  it,  and 
thought — for  he  was  half  dead  with  hunger — "  Now  I  shall  have 

*  "Russkaya  7tost."     I  have  translated  literally,  but  the  words  mean  nothing  more 
than  "  a  man,"  "something  human."     Cf.  Radloff,  :ii.  III.  301. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  115 

something  to  eat."  All  of  a  sudden  appeared  a  pike  and  said, 
"  Don't  hurt  my  little  one,  Prince  Ivan ;  I'll  do  you  a  good  turn." 
And  so  he  spared  the  little  pike  also. 

But  how  was  he  to  cross  the  sea  ?  He  sat  down  on  the  shore 
and  meditated.  But  the  pike  knew  quite  well  what  he  was 
thinking  about,  and  laid  herself  right  across  the  sea.  Prince 
Ivan  walked  along  her  back,  as  if  he  were  going  over  a  bridge, 
and  came  to  the  oak  where  Koshchei's  d-eath  was.  There  he 
found  the  casket  and  opened  it — out  jumped  the  hare  and  ran 
away.     How  was  the  hare  to  be  stopped  ? 

Prince  Ivan  was  terribly  frightened  at  having  let  the  hare 
escape,  and  gave  himself  up  to  gloomy  thoughts ;  but  a  wolf, 
the  one  he  had  refrained  from  killing,  rushed  after  the  hare, 
caught  it,  and  brought  it  to  Prince  Ivan.  With  great  delight 
he  seized  the  hare,  cut  it  open — and  had  such  a  fright !  Out 
popped  the  duck  and  flew  away.  He  fired  after  it,  but  shot 
all  on  one  side,  so  again  he  gave  himself  up  to  his  thoughts. 
Suddenly  there  appeared  the  crow  with  her  little  crows,  and  set 
off  after  the  duck,  and  caught  it,  and  brought  it  to  Prince  Ivan. 
The  Prince  was  greatly  pleased  and  got  hold  of  the  egg.  Then 
he  went  on  his  way.  But  when  he  came  to  the  sea,  he  began 
washing  the  egg,  and  let  it  drop  into  the  water.  However  was 
he  to  get  it  out  of  the  water?  an  immeasurable  depth!  Again 
the  Prince  gave  himself  up  to  dejection. 

Suddenly  the  sea  became  violently  agitated,  and  the  pike 
brought  him  the  egg.  Moreover  it  stretched  itself  across  the 
sea.  Prince  Ivan  walked  along  it  to  the  other  side,  and  then 
he  set  out  again  for  his  mother's.  When  he  got  there,  they 
greeted  each  other  lovingly,  and  then  she  hid  him  again  as  before. 
Presently  in  flew  Koshchei  the  Deathless  and  said : 

"  Phoo,  Phoo  !  No  Russian  bone  can  the  ear  hear  nor  the 
eye  see,  but  there's  a  smell  of  Russia  here  !  " 

"  What  are  you  talking  about,  Koshchei  ?  There's  no  one 
with  me,"  replied  Prince  Ivan's  mother. 

A  second  time  spake  Koshchei  and  said,"  I  feel  rather  unwell." 

Then  Prince  Ivan  began  squeezing  the  egg,  and  thereupon 
Koshchei  the  Deathless  bent  double.     At  last  Prince  Ivan  came 


116  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

out  from  his  hiding-place,  held  up  the  egg  and  said,  "There  is 
your  death,  О  Koshchei  the  Deathless  !  " 

Then  Koshchei  fell  on  his  knees  before  him,  saying,  "  Don  t 
kill  me,  Prince  Ivan  !  Let's  be  friends  !  All  the  world  will  lie 
at  our  feet." 

But  these  words  had  no  weight  with  Prince  Ivan.  He 
smashed  the  egg,  and  Koshchei  the  Deathless  died. 

Ivan  and  his  mother  took  all  they  wanted  and  started  home- 
wards. On  their  way  they  came  to  where  the  King's  daughter 
was  whom  Ivan  had  seen  on  his  way,  and  they  took  her  with 
them  too.  They  went  further,  and  came  to  the  hill  where  Ivan's 
brothers  were  still  waiting  for  him.  Then  the  maiden  said, 
"  Prince  Ivan !  do  go  back  to  my  house.  I  have  forgotten  a 
marriage  robe,  a  diamond  ring,  and  a  pair  of  seamless  shoes." 

He  consented  to  do  so,  but  in  the  mean  time  he  let  his  mother 
go  down  the  ladder,  as  well  as  the  Princess — whom  it  had  been 
settled  he  was  to  marry  when  they  got  home.  They  were  received 
by  his  brothers,  who  then  set  to  work  and  cut  away  the  ladder, 
so  that  he  himself  would  not  be  able  to  get  down.  And  they 
used  such  threats  to  his  mother  and  the  Princess,  that  they 
made  them  promise  not  to  tell  about  Prince  Ivan  when  they 
got  home.  And  after  a  time  they  reached  their  native  country. 
Their  father  was  delighted  at  seeing  his  wife  and  his  two  sons, 
but  still  he  was  grieved  about  the  other  one,  Prince  Ivan. 

But  Prince  Ivan  returned  to  the  home  of  his  betrothed,  and 
got  the  wedding  dress,  and  the  ring,  and  the  seamless  shoes. 
Then  he  came  back  to  the  mountain  and  tossed  the  ring  from 
one  hand  to  the  other.  Immediately  there  appeared  twelve 
strong  youths,  who  said  : 

"  What  are  your  commands  ?  " 
"  Carry  me  down  from  this  hill." 

The  youths  immediately  carried  him  down.  Prince  Ivan  put 
the  ring  on  his  finger — they  disappeared. 

Then  he  went  on  to  his  own  country,  and  arrived  at  the  city 
in  which  his  father  and  brothers  lived. 

There  he  took  up  his  quarters  in  the  house  of  an  old  woman, 
and  asked  her : 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  117 

"  What  news  is  there,  mother,  in  your  country?  " 

"  What  news,  lad  ?  You  see  our  queen  was  kept  in  prison 
by  Koshchei  the  Deathless.  Her  three  sons  went  to  look  for 
her,  and  two  of  them  found  her  and  came  back,  but  the  third, 
Prince  Ivan,  has  disappeared,  and  no  one  knows  where  he  is. 
The  King  is  very  unhappy  about  him.  And  those  two  Trinces 
and  their  mother  brought  a  certain  Princess  back  with  them  ; 
and  the  eldest  son  wants  to  marry  her,  but  she  declares  he  must 
fetch  her  her  betrothal  ring  first,  or  get  one  made  just  as  she 
wants  it.  But  although  they  have  made  a  public  proclamation 
about  it,  no  one  has  been  found  to  do  it  yet." 

"Well,  mother,  go  and  tell  the  King  that  you  will  make  one. 
I'll  manage  it  for  you,"  said  Prince  Ivan. 

So  the  old  woman  immediately  dressed  herself,  and  hastened 
to  the  King,  and  said  : 

"  Please,  your  Majesty,  I  will  make  the  wedding  ring." 

"  Make  it,  then,  make  it,  mother  !  Such  people  as  you  are 
welcome,"  said  the  king.  "  But  if  you  don't  make  it,  off  goes 
your  head ! " 

The  old  woman  was  dreadfully  frightened  ;  she  ran  home, 
and  told  Prince  Ivan  to  set  to  work  at  the  ring.  But  Ivan  lay 
down  to  sleep,  troubling  himself  very  little  about  it.  The  ring 
was  there  all  the  time.  So  he  only  laughed  at  the  old  woman, 
but  she  was  trembling  all  over,  and  crying,  and  scolding  him. 

"  As  for  you,"  she  said,  "  you're  out  of  the  scrape ;  but  you've 
done  for  me,  fool  that  I  was  !  " 

The  old  woman  cried  and  cried  until  she  fell  asleep.  Early  in 
the  morning  Prince  Ivan  got  up  and  awakened  her,  saying: 

"  Get  up,  mother,  and  go  out !  take  them  the  ring,  and  mind, 
don't  accept  more  than  one  ducat  for  it.  If  anyone  asks  who 
made  f  he  ring,  say  you  made  it  yourself ;  don't  say  a  word  about 
me." 

The  old  woman  was  overjoyed  and  carried  off  the  ring.  The 
bride  was  delighted  with  it. 

"Just  what  I  wanted,"  she  said.  So  they  gave  the  old  woman 
a  dish  full  of  gold,  but  she  took  only  one  ducat. 

"  Why  do  you  take  so  little  ? "  said  the  king. 


118  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  What  good  would  a  lot  do  me,  your  Majesty  ?  if  I  w  ant  some 
more  afterwards,  you'll  give  it  me." 

Having  said  this  the  old  woman  went  away. 

Time  passed,  and  the  news  spread  abroad  that  the  bride  had 
told  her  lover  to  fetch  her  her  wedding-dress  or  else  to  get  one 
made,  just  such  a  one  as  she  wanted.  Well,  the  old  woman, 
thanks  to  Prince  Ivan's  aid,  succeeded  in  this  matter  too,  and 
took  her  the  wedding-dress.  And  afterwards  she  took  her  the 
seamless  shoes  also,  and  would  only  accept  one  ducat  each  time 
and  always  said  that  she  had  made  the  things  herself. 

Well,  the  people  heard  that  there  would  be  a  wedding  at  the 
palace  on  such-and-such  a  day.  And  the  day  they  all  anxiously 
awaited  came  at  last.     Then  Prince  Ivan  said  to  the  old  woman : 

"  Look  here,  mother  !  when  the  bride  is  just  going  to  be 
married,  let  me  know." 

The  old  woman  didn't  let  the  time  go  by  unheeded. 

Then  Ivan  immediately  put  on  his  princely  raiment,  and  went 
out  of  the  house. 

"  See,  mother,  this  is  what  I'm  really  like  ! "  says  he. 

The  old  woman  fell  at  his  feet. 

"  Pray  forgive  me  for  scolding  you,"  said  she. 

"  God  be  with  you,"  said  he.  * 

So  he  went  into  the  church  and,  finding  his  brothers  had  not 
yet  arrived,  he  stood  up  alongside  of  the  bride  and  got  married 
to  her.  Then  he  and  she  were  escorted  back  to  the  palace,  and 
as  they  went  along,  the  proper  bridegroom,  his  eldest  brother, 
met  them.  But  when  he  saw  that  his  bride  and  Prince  Ivan  were 
being  escorted  home  together,  he  turned  back  again  ignomin- 
iously. 

As  to  the  king,  he  was  delighted  to  see  Prince  Ivan  again, 
and  when  he  had  learnt  all  about  the  treachery  of  his  brothers, 
after  the  wedding  feast  had  been  solemnized,  he  banished  the 
two  elder  princes,  but  he  made  Ivan  heir  to  the  throne. 

•  Bog prostit  =  God  will  forgive.  This  sounds  to  the  English  ear  like  an  ungracious 
reply,  but  it  is  the  phrase  ordinarily  used  by  a  superior  when  an  inferior  asks  his 
pardon.  Before  taking  the  sacrament  at  Easter,  the  servants  in  a  Russian  household 
ask  their  employers  to  forgive  them  for  any  faults  of  which  they  may  have  been 
guilty.     "  God  will  forgive,"  is  the  proper  reply. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  119 

In  the  story  of  "  Prince  Arikad,"  *  the  Queen-Mother  is 
carried  off  by  the  Whirlwind,f  instead  of  by  Koshchei. 
Her  youngest  son  climbs  the  hill  by  the  aid  of  iron  hooks, 
kills  Vikhor,  and  lowers  his  mother  and  three  other  ladies 
whom  he  has  rescued,  by  means  of  a  rope  made  of  strips 
of  hide.  This  his  brothers  cut  to  prevent  him  from  de- 
scending.f  They  then  oblige  the  ladies  to  swear  not  to 
betray  them,  the  taking  of  the  oath  being  accompanied  by 
the  eating  of  earth. §  The  same  formality  is  observed  in 
another  story  in  which  an  oath  of  a  like   kind  is  exacted.  || 

The  sacred  nature  of  such  an  obligation  may  account  for 
the  singular  reticence  so  often  maintained,  under  similar 
circumstances,  in  stories  of  this  class. 

In  one  of  the  descriptions  of  Koshchei's  death,  he  is  said 
to  be  killed  by  a  blow  on  the  forehead  inflicted  by  the  mys- 
terious egg — that  last  link  in  the  magic  chain  by  which 
his  life  is  darkly  bound. IT  In  another  version  of  the  same 
story,  but  told  of  a  Snake,  the  fatal  blow  is  struck  by  a 
small  stone  found  in  the  yolk  of  an  egg,  which  is  inside  a 
duck,  which  is  inside  a  hare,  which  is  inside  a  stone, 
which  is  on  an  island  [i.e.,  the  fabulous  island  Buyan].** 
In  another  variantff  Koshchei  attempts  to  deceive  his  fair 
captive,  pretending  that  his  "  death  "  resides  in  a  besom,  or 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  43. 

t  Vikhor'  (vif  =  to  whirl)  an  agent  often  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  abduction. 
The  sorcerers  of  the  present  day  are  supposed  to  be  able  to  direct  whirlwinds,  and  a 
not  uncommon  form  of  imprecation  in  some  parts  of  Russia  is  "  May  the  whirlwind 
carry  thee  off!  "  See  Afanasief,  P.V.S.  i.  317,  and  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People," 
p.  382. 

X  This  story  is  very  like  that  of  the  "  Rider  of  Grianaig,"  "  Tales  of  the  West 
Highlands,"  iii.  No.  58. 

§  Cf.  Herodotus,  bk.  iv.  chap.  172. 

||  Khudyakof,  No.  44. 

%  Erlenvein,  No.  12,  p.  67.  A  popular  tradition  asserts  that  the  Devil  may  be 
killed  if  shot  with  an  egg  laid  on  Christmas   Eve.     See  Afanasief,  P.  V.  S.  ii.  603. 

**  Afanasief,  i.  No  14,  p.  92.  For  an  account  of  Buyan,  see  "  Songs  of  the  Russian 
People,"  p.   374. 

ft  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  6,  p.  83. 


120  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

in  a  fence,  both  of  which  she  adorns  with  gold  in  token  of 
her  love.  Then  he  confesses  that  his  "  death  "  really  lies  in 
an  egg,  inside  a  duck,  inside  a  log  which  is  floating  on  the 
sea.  Prince  Ivan  gets  hold  of  the  egg  and  shifts  it  from 
one  hand  to  the  other.  Koshchei  rushes  wildly  from  side 
to  side  of  the  room.  At  last  the  prince  breaks  the  egg. 
Koshchei  falls  on  the  floor  and  dies. 

This  heart-breaking  episode  occurs  in  the  folk-tales  of 
many  lands.*  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  trace  it  through  some 
of  its  forms.  In  a  Norse  storyf  a  Giant's  heart  lies  in  an 
egg,  inside  a  duck,  which  swims  in  a  well,  in  a  church,  on 
an  island.  With  this  may  be  compared  another  Norse 
tale,$  in  which  a  Haugebasse,  or  Troll,  who  has  carried  off 
a  princess,  informs  her  that  he  and  all  his  companions  will 
burst  asunder  when  above  them  passes  "  the  grain  of  sand 
that  lies  under  the  ninth  tongue  in  the  ninth  head  "  of  a 
certain  dead  dragon.  The  grain  of  sand  is  found  and 
brought,  and  the  result  is  that  the  whole  of  the  monstrous 
brood  of  Trolls  or  Haugebasser  is  instantaneously  destroyed. 
In  a  Transylvanian-Saxon  story  §  a  Witch's  "  life  "  is  a 
light  which  burns  in  an  egg,  inside  a  duck,  which  swims 
on  a  pond,  inside  a  mountain,  and  she  dies  when  it  is  put 
out.  In  the  Bohemian  story  of  "The  Sun-horse  "  ||  a  War- 
lock's "  strength  "  lies  in  an  egg,  which  is  within  a  duck, 
which  is  within  a  stag,  which  is  under  a  tree.  A  Seer  finds 
the  egg  and  sucks  it.  Then  the  Warlock  becomes  as  weak  as 
a  child,  "  for  all  his  strength  had  passed  into  the  Seer."    In 

*  Some  of  these  have  been  compared  by  Mr.  Cox,  in  his  "  Mythology  of  the  Агудп 
Nations,"  i.  135-142.  Also  by  Professor  A.  de  Gubematis,  who  sees  in  the  duck  the 
dawn,  in  the  hare  "  the  moon  sacrificed  in  the  morning,"  and  in  the  egg  the  sun.  "  Zo» 
ological  Mythology,"  i.  269. 

t  Asbjornsen  and  Мое,  No.  36,  Dasent,  No.  9,  p.  71. 

%  Asbjornsen's  "  New  Series,"  No.  70,  p.  39. 

§  Haltrich's  "  Deutsche  Volksmarcben  aus  dem  Sachsenlande  in  Siebenbiigen," 
p.  188. 

У  Wenzig's  "  Westslawischer  Marchenschatz,"  No.   37,  p.   190. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  121 

the  Gaelic  story  of  "The  Sea-Maiden,"*  the  "great  beast 
with  three  heads  "  which  haunts  the  loch  cannot  be  killed 
until  an  egg  is  broken,  which  is  in  the  mouth  of  a  trout, 
which  springs  out  of  a  crow,  which  flies  out  of  a  hind, 
which  lives  on  an  island  in  the  middle  of  the  loch.  In  a 
Modern  Greek  tale  the  life  of  a  dragon  or  other  baleful 
being  comes  to  an  end  simultaneously  with  the  lives  of 
three  pigeons  which  are  shut  up  in  an  all  b%  inaccessible 
chamber,!  or  inclosed  within  a  wild  boar.  ?  Closely  con- 
nected with  the  Greek  tale  is  the  Servian  story  of  the 
dragon  §  whose  "  strength  "  (snaga)  lies  in  a  sparrow,  which 
is  inside  a  clove,  inside  a  hare,  inside  a  boar,  inside  a  dragon 
{ajdayd)  which  is  in  a  lake,  near  a  royal  city.  The  hero  of 
the  story  fights  the  dragon  of  the  lake,  and  after  a  long 
struggle,  being  invigorated  at  the  critical  moment  by  a  kiss 
which  the  heroine  imprints  on  his  forehead — he  flings  it 
high  in  the  air.  When  it  falls  to  the  ground  it  breaks  in 
pieces,  and  out  comes  the  boar.  Eventually  the  hero 
seizes  the  sparrow  and  wrings  its  neck,  but  not  before  he 
has  obtained  from  it  the  charm  necessary  for  the  recovery 
of  his  missing  brothers  and  a  number  of  other  victims  of 
the  dragon's  cruelty. 

To  these  European  tales  a  very  interesting  parallel  is 
afforded  by  the  Indian  story  of  "  Punchkin,"  Ц  whose  life 
depends  on  that  of  a  parrot,  which  is  in  a  cage  placed 
beneath  the  lowest  of  six  jars  of  water,  piled   one  on  the 

*  Campbell's  "  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands,"  i.  No-  4,  p.  81. 

t  Hahn,  No.  26,  i.  187. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  pp.  215,  294-5. 

§  Vuk  Karajich,  No.  8.  The  monster  is  called  in  the  Servian  text  an  Ajdaya,  a 
word  meaning  a  dragon  or  snake.  It  is  rendered  by  Drache  in  the  German  transla- 
tion of  his  collection  of  tales  made  by  his  da  renter,  but  the  word  is  evidently  akin  tc 
the  Sanskrit  ah!,  the  Greek  eXlR  ^XL"vat  the  Latin  angitis,  the  Russian  ujak  the 
Luthanian  angis,  etc.     The  Servian  word  snaga  answers  to  the  Russian  sila,  strength. 

I)  Miss  Frere's  "  Old  Deccan  Davs,"  pp.  12-16. 


122  R  USSIA  N  FOLK-  TALES. 

other,  and  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  desolate  country  cov- 
ered with  thick  jungle.  When  the  parrot's  legs  and  wings  are 
pulled  off,  Punchkin  loses  his  legs  and  arms  ;  and  when  its 
neck  is  wrung,  his  head  twists  round  and  he  dies. 

One  of  the  strangest  of  the  stories  which  turn  on  this 
idea  of  an  external  heart  is  the  Samoyed  tale,  *  in  which 
seven  brothers  are  in  the  habit,  every  night,  of  taking  out 
their  hearts  and  sleeping  without  them.  A  captive  damsel 
whose  mother  they  have  killed,  receives  the  extracted  hearts 
and  hangs  them  on  the  tent-pole,  where  they  remain  till  the 
following  morning.  One  night  her  brother  contrives  to  get 
the  hearts  into  his  possession.  Next  morning  he  takes 
them  into  the  tent,  where  he  finds  the  brothers  at  the  point 
of  death.  In  vain  do  they  beg  for  their  hearts,  which  he 
flings  on  the  floor.  "  And  as  he  flings  down  the  hearts  the 
brothers  die." 

The  legend  to  which  I  am  how  about  to  refer  will  serve 
as  a  proof  of  the  venerable  antiquity  of  the  myth  from 
which  the  folk-tales,  which  have  just  been  quoted,  appear 
to  have  sprung.  A  papyrus,  which  is  supposed  to  be  "  of 
the  age  of  the  nineteenth  dynasty,  about  B.C.  1300,"  has 
preserved  an  Egyptian  tale  about  two  brothers.  The 
younger  of  these,  Satou,  leaves  the  elder,  Anepou  (Anubis) 
and  retires  to  the  Valley  of  the  Acacia.  But,  before  setting 
off,  Satou  states  that  he  shall  take  his  heart  and  place  it 
"  in  the  flowers  of  the  acacia-tree,"  so  that,  if  the  tree  is  cut 
down,  his  heart  will  fall  to  the  ground  and  he  will  die. 
Having  given  Anepou  instructions  what  to  do  in  such  a 
case,  he  seeks  the  valley.  There  he  hunts  wild  animals  by 
day,  and  at  night  he  sleeps  under  the  acacia-tree  on  which 
his  heart  rests.     But  at  length  Noum,  the  Creator,  forms  a 

»  Castren's    "  Ethr.ologist.he  Vorlesungen  fiber  die  Altaischen  VBlker,"  p.   174. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  123 

wife  for  him,  and  all  the  other  gods  endow  her  with  gifts. 
To  this  Egyptian  Pandora  Satou  confides  the  secret  of  his 
heart.  One  day  a  tress  of  her  perfumed  hair  floats  down 
the  river,  and  is  taken  to  the  King  of  Egypt.  He  determines 
to  make  its  owner  his  queen,  and  she,  like  Rhodope  or  Cin- 
derella, is  sought  for  far  and  wide.  When  she  has  been 
found  and  brought  to  the  king,  she  recommends  him  to 
have  the  acacia  cut  down,  so  as  to  get  rid  of  her  lawful 
husband.  Accordingly  the  tree  is  cut  down,  the  heart  falls, 
and  Satou  dies. 

About  this  time  Anepou  sets  out  to  pay  his  long-lost 
brother  a  visit.  Finding  him  dead,  he  searches  for  his  heart, 
but  searches  in  vain  for  three  years.  In  the  fourth  year, 
however,  it  suddenly  becomes  desirous  of  returning  to 
Egypt,  and  says,  "  I  will  leave  this  celestial  sphere."  Next 
day  Anepou  finds  it  under  the  acacia,  and  places  it  in  a 
vase  which  conta'ns  some  mystic  fluid.  When  the  heart  has 
become  saturated  with  the  moisture,  the  corpse  shudders 
and  opens  its  eyes.  Anepou  pours  the  rest  of  the  fluid 
down  its  throat,  the  heart  returns  to  its  proper  place,  and 
Satou  is  restored  to  life.* 

In  one  of  the  Skazkas,  a  volshebnitsa  or  enchantress  is 
introduced,  whose  "  death,"  like  that  of  Koshchei,  is  spoken 
of  as  something  definite  and  localized.  A  prince  has  loved 
and  lost  a  princess,  who   is  so  beautiful  that  no    man   can 

*  The  story  has  been  translated  by  M.  de  Rouge  in  the  "  Revue  ArcheV.ogique," 
1852-3,  p.  391  (referred  to  by  Professer  Benfey,  "  Panchatantra,"  i.  426)  and  summar- 
ized by  Mr.  Goodwin  in  the  "  Cambridge  Essays"  for  1858,  pp.  232-7,  and  by  Dr. 
Mannhardt  in  the  "  Zeitschrift  fur  deutsche  Mytho'ogie,"  &c,  vol.  iv.  pp,  232-59.  For 
other  versions  of  the  story  of  the  Giant's  heart,  or  Koshchei's  death,  see  Professor  R. 
Kohler's  remarks  on  the  subject  in  "  Orient  und  Occident,''  ii.  pp.  99-103.  A  singular 
parallel  to  part  of  the  Egyptain  myth  is  offered  by  the  Hottentot  story  in  which  the 
heart  of  a  girl  whom  a  lion  has  killed  and  eaten,  is  extracted  from  the  lion,  and  placed 
in  a  calabash  filled  with  milk.  "  The  calabash  increased  in  size,  and  in  proportion  to 
this,  the  girl  grew  again  inside  it."  Bleek's  "  Reynard  the  Fox  in  Sorth  Africa,"  p. 
55.     Cf.  RadloS,  i.  75  ;  ii.  237-8,  532-3- 


124  RUSSIAN  FOLK- 1 A LH.S. 

look  at  her  without  fainting.  Going  in  search  of  her,  he 
comes  to  the  home  of  an  enchantress,  who  invites  him  to 
tea  and  gives  him  leave  to  inspect  her  house.  As  he  wan- 
ders about  he  comes  to  a  cellar  in  which  "  he  sees  that 
beautiful  one  whom  he  loves,  in  fire."  She  tells  him 
her  love  for  him  has  brought  her  there ;  and  he  learns  that 
there  is  no  hope  of  freeing  her  unless  he  can  find  out 
"  where  lies  the  death  of  the  enchantress."  So  that  evening 
he  asks  his  hostess  about  it,  and  she  replies  : 

"In  a  certain  lake  stands  a  blue  rose-tree.  It  is  in  a 
deep  place,  and  no  man  can  reach  unto  it.  My  death  is 
there." 

He  sets  out  in  search  of  it,  and,  aided  by  a  magic  ring, 
reaches  the  lake,  "  and  sees  there  the  blue  rose-tree,  and 
around  it  a  blue  forest."  After  several  failures,  he  succeeds 
in  plucking  up  the  rose-tree  by  the  roots,  whereupon  the 
enchantress  straightway  sickens.  He  returns  to  her  house 
finds  her  at  the  point  of  death,  and  throws  the  rose-bush 
into  the  cellar  where  his  love  is  crying,  "  Behold  her  death  ! " 
and  immediately  the  whole  building  shakes  to  its  founda- 
tions— "  and  becomes  an  island,  on  which  are  people  who 
had  been  sitting  in  Hell,  and  who  offer  up  thanks  to  Prince 
Ivan."* 

In  another  Russian  story,  f  a  prince  is  grievously  tor- 
mented by  a  witch  who  has  got  hold  of  his  heart,  and 
keeps  it  perpetually  seething  in  a  magic  cauldron.  In  a 
third, X  a  "  Queen-Maiden  "  falls  in  love  with  the  young  Ivan, 
and,  after  being  betrothed  to  him,  would  fain  take  him 
away  to  her  own  land  and  marry  him.     But  his  stepmother 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  109.  t  Khudyakof,  No.  iip. 

%  Afanasief,  v.  No.  42.  See  also  the  Zagovor,  or  spell,  "  to  give  a  good  youth  a 
longing  for  a  fair  maiden,"  ("  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  p.  369,)  in  which  "the 
Longing  "is  described  as  lying  under  a  plank  in  a  hut,  weeping  and  sobbing,  and  "  wait« 
.ng  to  get  at  the  white  light,"  and  is  desired  to  gnaw  its  way  into  the  youth's  heart. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  125 

throws  him  into  a  magic  slumber,  and  the  Queen-Ma-iden  has 
to  return  home  without  him.  When  he  awakes,  and  learns 
that  she  has  gone,  he  sorrows  greatly,  and  sets  out  in  search 
of  her.  At  last  he  learns  from  a  friendly  witch  that  his 
betrothed  no  longer  cares  for  him,  "  her  love  is  hidden  far 
away."  It  seems  "  that  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean  stands 
an  oak,  and  on  the  oak  a  coffer,  and  in  the  coffer  a  hare, 
and  in  the  hare  a  duck,  and  in  the  duck  an  egg,  and  in  the 
egg  the  love  of  the  Queen-Maiden."  Ivan  gets  possession 
of  the  egg,  and  the  friendly  witch  contrives  to  have  it  placed 
before  the  Queen-Maiden  at  dinner.  She  eats  it,  and  im- 
mediately her  love  for  Ivan  returns  in  all  its  pristine  force. 
He  appears,  and  she,  overjoyed,  carries  him  off  to  her  own 
land  and  there  marries  him. 

After  this  digression  we  will  now  return  to  our  Snakes 
All  the  monstrous  forms  which  figure  in  the  stories  we  have 
just  been  considering  appear  to  be  merely  different  species 
of  the  great  serpent  family.  Such  names  as  Koshchei, 
Chudo  Yudo,  Usuinya,  and  the  like,  seem  to  admit  of  ex- 
change at  the  will  of  the  storyteller  with  that  of  Zme'i  Gor- 
uinuich,  the  many-headed  Snake,  who  in  Russian  story-land 
is  represented  as  the  type  of  all  that  is  evil.  But  in  the  ac- 
tual Russia  of  to-day,  snakes  bear  by  no  means  so  bad  a 
character.  Their  presence  in  a  cottage  is  considered  a  good 
omen  by  the  peasants,  who  leave  out  milk  for  them  to 
drink,  and  who  think  that  to  kill  such  visitors  would  be  a 
terrible  sin.*  This  is  probably  a  result  of  some  remem- 
brance of  a  religious  cultus  paid  to  the  household  gods 
under  the  form  of  snakes,  such  as  existed  of  old,  according 
to  Kromer,  in  Poland  and  Lithuania.  The  following  story 
is  more   in  keeping  with   such  ideas    as   these,  than    with 

*  For  stories  about  house  snakes,  &c,  see  Grimm  "  Deutsche  Mytliulo^ie,"  p.  Cy\ 
and  Tylor,  "  Primitive  Culture,"  ii.  pp   7,  217-220. 


126  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

those,  which  are  expressed  in  the  tales  about  Koshchei  and 
his  kin. 

The  Water  Snake.* 

There  was  once  an  old  woman  who  had  a  daughter;  and  her 
daughter  went  down  to  the  pond  one  day  to  bathe  with  the 
other  girls.  They  all  stripped  off  their  shifts,  and  went  into  the 
water.  Then  there  came  a  snake  out  of  the  water,  and  glided  on 
to  the  daughter's  shift.  After  a  time  the  girls  all  came  out,  and 
began  to  put  on  their  shifts,  and  the  old  woman's  daughter  wanted 
to  put  on  hers,  but  there  was  the  snake  lying  on  it.  She  tried 
to  drive  him  away,  but  there  he  stuck  and  would  not  move.  Then 
the  snake  said  : 

"If  you'll  marry  me,  I'll  give  you  back  your  shift." 

Now  she  wasn't  at  all  inclined  to  marry  him,  but  the  other 
girls  said : 

"  As  if  it  were  possible  for  you  to  be  married  to  him !  Say 
you  will !  "  So  she  said,  "  Very  well,  I  will."  Then  the  snake 
glided  off  from  the  shift,  and  went  straight  into  the  water.  The 
girl  dressed  and  went  home.  And  as  soon  as  she  got  there, 
she  said  to  her  mother, 

"  Mammie,  mammie,  thus  and  thus,  a  snake  got  upon  my 
shift,  and  says  he, '  Marry  me  or  I  won't  let  you  have  your  shift ; ' 
and  I  said, 'I  will.'" 

"  What  nonsense  are  you  talking,  you  little  fool !  as  if  one 
could  marry  a  snake  !  " 

And  so  they  remained  just  as  they  were,  and  forgot  all  about 
the  matter. 

A  week  passed  by,  and  one  day  they  saw  ever  so  many  snakes, 
a  huge  troop  of  them,  wriggling  up  to  their  cottage.  "  Ah, 
mammie,  save  me,  save  me  !  "  cried  the  girl,  and  her  mother 
slammed  the  door  and  barred  the  entrance  as  quickly  as  possible. 
The  snakes  would  have  rushed  in  at  the  door,  but  the  door  was 
shut ;  they  would  have  rushed  into  the  passage,  but  the  passage 
was  closed.     Then  in  a  moment  they  rolled  themselves  nto  э 

}  Or  Ujak.     Erlenvein,  No.  2.     From  the  Tula  Government. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  127 

ball,  flung  themselves  at  the  window,  smashed  it  to  pieces,  and 
glided  in  a  body  into  the  room.  The  girl  got  upon  the  stove,  but 
they  followed  her,  pulled  her  down,  and  bore  her  out  of  the  room 
and  out  of  doors.  Her  mother  accompanied  her,  crying  like 
anything. 

They  took  the  girl  down  to  the  pond,  and  dived  right  into  the 
water  with  her.  And  there  they  all  turned  into  men  and  women. 
The  mother  remained  for  some  time  on  the  dike,  wailed  a  little, 
and  then  went  home. 

Three  years  went  by.  The  girl  lived  down  there,  and  had 
two  children,  a  son  and  a  daughter.  Now  she  often  entreated 
her  husband  to  let  her  go  to  see  her  mother.  So  at  last  one  day 
he  took  her  up  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  brought  her 
ashore.     But  she  asked  him  before  leaving  him, 

"  What  am  I  to  call  out  when  I  want  you  ?  " 

"  Call  out  to  me,  '  Osip,  [Joseph]  Osip,  come  here  ! '  and  I 
will  come,"  he  replied. 

Then  he  dived  under  water  again,  and  she  went  to  her 
mother's,  carrying  her  little  girl  on  one  arm,  and  leading  her  boy 
by  the  hand.  Out  came  her  mother  to  meet  her — was  so 
delighted  to  see  her ! 

"  Good  day,  mother  !  "  said  the  daughter. 

"  Have  you  been  doing  well  while  you  were  living  down 
there  ?  "  asked  her  mother. 

"  Very  well  indeed,  mother.  My  life  there  is  better  than 
yours  here." 

They  sat  down  for  a  bit  and  chatted.  Her  mother  got 
dinner  ready  for  her,  and  she  dined. 

"  What's  your  husband's  name  ?  "  asked  her  mother. 

"  Osip,"  she  replied. 

"  And  how  are  you  to  get  home  ?  " 

"  I  shall  go  to  the  dike,  and  call  out,  '  Osip,  Osip,  come 
here  ! '  and  he'll  come." 

"  Lie  down,  daughter,  and  rest  a  bit,"  said  the  mother. 

So  the  daughter  lay  down  and  went  to  sleep.  The  mother 
immediately  took  an  axe  and  sharpened  it,  and  went  down  to  the 


128  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

dike  with  it.     And  when  she  came  to  the  dike,  she  began  calling 
out, 

"  Osip,  Osip,  come  here  !  " 

No  sooner  had  Osip  shown  his  head  than  the  old  woman 
lifted  her  axe  and  chopped  it  off.  And  the  water  in  the  pond 
became  dark  with  blood. 

The  old  woman  went  home.  And  when  she  got  home  her 
daughter  awoke. 

"  Ah  ?  mother,"  says  she,  "I'm  getting  tired  of  being  here ;  I'll 
go  home." 

"  Do  sleep  here  to-night,  daughter  ;  perhaps  you  won't  have 
another  chance  of  being  with  me." 

So  the  daughter  stayed  and  spent  the  night  there.  In  the 
morning  she  got  up  and  her  mother  got  breakfast  ready  for  her; 
she  breakfasted,  and  then  she  said  good-bye  to  her  mother  and 
went  away,  carrying  her  little  girl  in  her  arms,  while  her  boy 
followed  behind  her.     She  came  to  the  dike,  and  called  out : 

"  Osip,  Osip,  come  here  !  " 

She  called  and  called,  but  he  did  not  come. 

Then  she  looked  into  the  water,  and  there  she  saw  a  head 
floating  about.     Then  she  guessed  what  had  happened. 

"  Alas  !  my  mother  has  killed  him  !  "  she  cried. 

There  on  the  bank  she  wept  and  wailed.  And  then  to  her 
girl  she  cried : 

"  Fly  about  as  a  wren,  henceforth  and  evermore  !  " 

And  to  her  boy  she  cried  : 

"  Fly  about  as  a  nightingale,  my  boy,  henceforth  and  ever- 
more ! " 

"But  I,"  she  said,  "will  fly  about  as  a  cuckoo,  crying 
"  Cuckoo  !  "  henceforth  and  evermore  !  " 


[Stories  about  serpent-spouses  are  by  no  means  uncommon,  but  I  can  find  no  paral- 
lel to  the  above  so  far  as  the  termination  is  concerned.  Benfey  quotes  or  refers  to  a 
great  number  of  the  transformation  tales  in  which  a  husband  or  a  wife  appears  at 
times  in  the  form  of  a  snake  (Par.chatantra,  i.  pp.  254-7  266-7).  Sometimes,  when 
a  husband  of  this  kind  has  doffed  his  serpent's  skin,  his  wife  seizes  it,  and  throws  it 
into  the  fire.  Her  act  generally  proves  to  be  to  her  advantage,  as  well  as  to  his,  but 
not  always.    On  a  story  of  this  kind  was  doubtless  founded   the  legend  handed  dowu 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  129 

to  us  by  Appuleius  of  Cupid  and  Psyche.  Among  its  wildest  versions  are  the  Alba- 
nian "  Schlangenkind  "  (Hahn,  No.  ioo),  a  very  similar  Roumanian  tale  (Ausland 
1857,  No.  43,  quoted  by  Benfey),  the  Wallachiau  Trandaftru  (Schctt,  No.  23,  in 
which  the  husband  is  a  pumpkin  (Kiirbiss)  by  day),  and  the  second  of  ihe  Servian 
tales  of  the  Snake-Husband  (Vuk  Karajich,  No.  10).] 

The  snakes  which  figure  in  this  weird  story,  the  termin- 
ation of  which  is  so  unusually  tragic,  bear  a  strong  resem 
blance  to  the  Indian  Nagas,  the  inhabitants  of  Patala  or  the 
underground  world,  serpents  which  take  at  will  the  human 
shape  and  often  mix  with  mortals.  They  may,  also,  be 
related  to  the  mermen  and  mermaids  of  the  sea-coasts,  an-i 
to  the  similar  beings  with  which,  under  various  name5, 
tradition  peoples  the  lakes,  and  streams,  and  fountains  of 
Europe.  The  South-Russian  peasantry  have  «from  imme- 
morial times  maintained  a  firm  belief  in  the  existence  of 
water-nymphs,  called  Rusalkas,  closely  resembling  the 
Nereids  of  Modern  Greece,  the  female  Nixies  of  the  North 
of  Europe,  and  throughout  the  whole  of  Russia,  at  least  in 
outlying  districts,  there  still  lingers  a  sort  of  cultus  of  cer- 
tain male  water-sprites  who  bear  the  name  of  Vodyanies, 
and  who  are  almost  identical  with  the  beings  who  haunt 
the  waters  of  various  countries — such  as  the  German  Nix, 
the  Swedish  Nek,  the  Finnish  Nakke,  etc.* 

In  the  Skazkas  we  find  frequent  mention  of  beauteous 
maidens  who  usually  live  beneath  the  wave,  but  who  can 
transform  themselves  into  birds  and  fly  wherever  they 
please.  We  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  designate  them 
by  the  well-known  name  of  Swan-Maidens,  though  they  do 
not  always  assume,  together  with  their  plumage-robes,  the 
form  of  swans,  but  sometimes  appear  as  geese,  ducks, 
spoonbills,  or  aquatic  birds  of  some  other  species.      They 

*  Grimm,  "  Deutsche  Mythologie,"  456.     For  a  description  of  the  Rusalk  and 
the  Vodyany,  see  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  pp.  139-146. 

9 


130  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

are,  for  the  most  part,  the  daughters  of  the  Morskoi  Tsar, 
or  Water  King — a  being  who  plays  an  important  part  in 
Slavonic  popular  fiction.  He  is  of  a  somewhat  shadowy 
form,  and  his  functions  are  not  very  clearly  defined,  for  the 
part  he  usually  fills  is  sometimes  allotted  to  Koshchei  or 
to  the  Snake,  but  the  stories  generally  represent  him  as  a 
patriarchal  monarch,  living  in  subaqueous  halls  of  light  and 
splendor,  whence  he  emerges  at  times  to  seize  a  human 
victim.  It  is  generally  a  boy  whom  he  gets  into  his  power, 
and  who  eventually  obtains  the  hand  of  one  of  his  daugh- 
ters, and  escapes  with  her  to  the  upper  world,  though  not 
without  considerable  difficulty.  Such  are,  for  instance,  the 
leading  incidents  in  the  following  skazka,  many  features  of 
which  closely  resemble  those  of  various  well-known  West- 
European  folk-tales. 

The  Water  King  and  Vasilissa  the  Wise* 

Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  a  King  and  Queen,  and  the  King 
was  very  fond  of  hunting  and  shooting.  Well  one  day  he  went 
out  hunting,  and  he  saw  an  Eaglet  sitting  on  an  oak  But  just 
as  he  was  going  to  shoot  at  it  the  Eaglet  began  to  entreat  him, 
crying : — 

"  Don't  shoot  me,  my  lord  King !  better  take  me  home  with 
you ;  some  time  or  other  I  shall  be  of  service  to  you." 

The  King  reflected  awhile  and  said,  "  How  can  you  be  of  use 
to  me  ?  "  and  again  he  was  going  to  shoot. 

Then  the  Eaglet  said  to  him  a  second  time  : — 

"  Don't  shoot  me,  my  lord  King !  better  take  me  home  with 
you ;  some  time  or  other  I  shall  be  of  use  to  you." 

The  King  thought  and  thought,  but  couldn't  imagine  a  bit  the 
more  what  use  the  Eaglet  could  be  to  him,  and  so  he  determined 
to  shoot  it.     Then  a  third  time  the  Eaglet  exclaimed : — 

*  Afanasief,  v.  No.  23.    From  the  Voroneje  Government. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  131 

"  Don't  shoot  me,  my  lord  King  !  better  take  me  home  with 
you  and  feed  me  for  three  years.  Some  time  or  other  I  shall  be 
of  service  to  you  !  " 

The  King  relented,  took  the  Eaglet  home  with  him,  and  fed 
it  for  a  year,  for  two  years.  But  it  ate  so  much  that  it  devoured 
all  his  cattle.  The  King  had  neither  a  cow  nor  a  sheep  left.  At 
length  the  Eagle  said : — 

"  Now  let  me  go  free  !  " 

The  King  set  it  at  liberty ;  the  Eagle  began  trying  its  wings. 
But  no,  it  could  not  fly  yet !     So  it  said  : — 

"  Well,  my  lord  King !  you  have  fed  me  two  years  ;  now, 
whether  you  like  it  or  no,  feed  me  for  one  year  more.  Even  if 
you  have  to  borrow,  at  all  events  feed  me  ;  you  won't  lose  by  it !  " 

Well,  this  is  what  the  King  did.  He  borrowed  cattle  from 
everywhere  round  about,  and  he  fed  the  Eagle  for  the  space  of  a 
whole  year,  and  afterwards  he  set  it  at  liberty.  The  Eagle  rose 
ever  so  high,  flew  and  flew,  then  dropt  down  again  to  the  earth 
and  said : — 

"  Now  then,  my  lord  King !  Take  a  seat  on  my  back !  we'll 
have  a  fly  together  ?  " 

The  King  got  on  the  Eagle's  back.  Away  they  went  flying. 
Before  very  long  they  reached  the  blue  sea.  Then  the  Eagle 
shook  off  the  King,  who  fell  into  the  sea,  and  sank  up  to  his 
knees.  But  the  Eagle  didn't  let  him  drown  !  it  jerked  him  on  to 
its  wing,  and  asked  : — 

"  How  now,  my  lord  King !  were  you  frightened,  perchance  ?  " 

"  I  was,"  said  the  King ;  "  I  thought  I  was  going  to  be  drowned 
outright !  " 

Again  they  flew  and  flew  till  they  reached  another  sea.  The 
Eagle  shook  off  the  King  right  in  the  middle  of  the  sea ;  the  King 
sank  up  to  his  girdle.  The  Eagle  jerked  him  on  to  its  wing 
again,  and  asked  : — 

"  Well,  my  lord  King,  were  you  frightened,  perchance  ? " 

"  I  was,"  he  replied,  "but  all  the  time  I  thought,  '  Perhaps, 
please  God,  the  creature  will  pull  me  out.' " 

Away  they  flew  again,  flew,  and  arrived  at  a  third  sea.  The 
Eagle  dropped  the  King  into  a  great  gulf,  so  that  he  sank  right 


132  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Op  to  his  neck.  And  the  third  time  the  Eagle  jerked  him  on  to 
its  wing,  and  asked  : — 

"  Well,  my  lord  King  !  Were  you  frightened,  perchance  ? " 

"  I  was,"  says  the  King,  "  but  still  I  said  to  myself,  '  Perhaps 
it  will  pull  me  out'  " 

"  Well,  my  lord  King  !  now  you  have  felt  what  the  fear  of 
death  is  like  !  What  I  have  done  was  in  payment  of  an  old  score. 
Do  you  remember  my  sitting  on  an  oak,  and  your  wanting  to 
shoot  me  ?  Three  times  you  were  going  to  let  fly,  but  1  kept  on 
entreating  you  not  to  shoot,  saying  to  myself  all  the  time,  '  Per- 
haps he  won't  kill  me  ;  perhaps  he'll  relent  and  take  me  home 
with  him  ! '  " 

Afterwards  they  flew  beyond  thrice  nine  lands  :  long,  long 
did  they  fly.  Says  the  Eagle,  "Look,  my  lord  King!  what  is 
above  us  and  what  below  us  ? " 

The  King  looked. 

"  Above  us,"  he  says,  is  the  sky,  below  us  the  earth." 

"  Look  again  ;  what  is  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left  ? 

"  On  the  right  hand  is  an  open  plain,  on  the  left  stands  a 
house." 

"  We  will  fly  thither,"  said  the  Eagle  ;  "  my  youngest  sister 
lives  there." 

They  went  straight  into  the  courtyard.  The  sister  came  out 
to  meet  them,  received  her  brother  cordially,  and  seated  him  at 
the  oaken  table.  But  on  the  King  she  would  not  so  much  as 
look,  but  left  him  outside,  loosed  greyhounds,  and  set  them  at 
him.  The  Eagle  was  exceedingly  wroth,  jumped  up  from  table, 
seized  the  King,  and  flew  away  with  him  again. 

Well,  they  flew  and  flew.  Presently  the  Eagle  said  to  the 
King,  "  Look  round  ;  what  is  behind  us  ?  " 

The  King  turned  his  head,  looked,  and  said,  "  Behind  us  is  a 
red  house." 

"That  is  the  house  of  my  youngest  sister — on  fire,  because 
she  did  not  receive  you,  but  set  greyhounds  at  you  !  " 

They  flew  and  flew.     Again  the  Eagle  asked  : 

"  Look  again,  my  lord  King ;  what  is  above  us,  and  what 
below  us  ? " 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  133 

"  Above  us  is  the  sky,  below  us  the  earth." 

"Look  and  see  what  is  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left." 

"  On  the  right  is  the  open  plain,  on  the  left  there  stands  a 
hoase." 

"There  lives  my  second  sister;  we'll  go  and  pay  her  a  visit." 

They  stopped  in  a  wide  courtyard.  The  second  sister  received 
her  brother  cordially,  and  seated  him  at  the  oaken  table  ;  but  the 
King  was  left  outside,  and  she  loosed  greyhounds,  and  set  them 
at  him.  The  Eagle  flew  into  a  rage,  jumped  up  from  table, 
caught  up  the  King,  and  flew  away  farther  with  him.  They  flew 
and  .flew.     Says  the  Eagle  : 

"  My  lord  King  !  look  round  !  what  is  behind  us  ?  " 

The  King  looked  back. 

"There  stands  behind  us  a  red  house." 

"  That's  my  second  sister's  house  burning !  "  said  the  Eagle. 
"  Now  we'll  fly  to  where  my  mother  and  my  eldest  sister  live." 

Well,  they  flew  there.  The  Eagle's  mother  and  eldest  sistei 
were  delighted  to  see  them,  and  received  the  King  with  cordiality 
and  respect. 

" Now,  my  lord  King,"  said  the  Eagle,  "tarry  awhile  with 
us,  and  afterwards  I  will  give  you  a  ship,  and  will  repay  you  for 
all  I  ate  in  your  house,  and  then — God  speed  you  home  again  !  " 

So  the  Eagle  gave  the  King  a  ship  and  two  coffers — the  one 
red,  the  other  green — and  said  : 

"Mind  now!  don't  open  the  coffers  until  you  get  home. 
Then  open  the  red  coffer  in  the  back  court,  and  the  green  coffer 
in  the  front  court. 

The  King  took  the  coffers,  parted  with  the  Eagle,  and  sailed 
along  the  blue  sea.  Presently  he  came  to  a  certain  island,  and 
there  his  ship  stopped.  He  landed  on  the  shore,  and  began 
thinking  about  the  coffers,  and  wondering  whatever  there  could 
be  in  them,  and  why  the  Eagle  had  told  him  not  to  open  them 
He  thought  and  thought,  and  at  last  couldn't  hold  out  any  more 
— he  longed  so  awfully  to  know  all  about  it.  So  he  took  the  red 
coffer,  set  it  on  the  ground,  and  opened  it — and  out  of  it  came 
such  a  quantity  of  different  kinds  of  cattle  that  there  was  no 
counting  them  ;  the  island  had  barely  room  enough  for  them. 


134  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

When  the  King  saw  that,  he  became  exceedingly  sorrowful, 
and  began  to  weep  and  therewithal  to  say : 

"  What  is  there  now  left  for  me  to  do  ?  how  shall  I  get  all 
this  cattle  back  into  so  little  a  coffer  ?  " 

Lo  !  there  came  out  of  the  water  a  man-  -came  up  to  him,  and 
asked : 

"  Wherefore  are  you  weeping  so  bitterly,  О  lord  King  ?  " 

"  How  can  I  help  weeping ! "  answers  the  King.  "  How 
shall  I  be  able  to  get  all  this  great  herd  into  so  small  a  coffer  ?  " 

"  If  you  like,  I  will  set  your  mind  at  rest.  I  will  pack  up  all 
your  cattle  for  you.  But  on  one  condition  only.  You  must  give 
me  whatever  you  have  at  home  that  you  don't  know  of." 

The  King  reflected. 

"Whatever  is  there  at  home  that  I  don't  know  of?"  says  he. 
"  I  fancy  I  know  about  everything  that's  there." 

He  reflected,  and  consented.  "Pack  them  up,"  says  he.  "I 
will  give  you  whatever  I  have  at  home  that  I  know  nothing 
about." 

So  that  man  packed  away  all  his  cattle  for  him  in  the  coffer. 
The  King  went  on  board  ship  and  sailed  away  homewards. 

When  he  reached  home,  then  only  did  he  learn  that  a  son 
had  been  born  to  him.  And  he  began  kissing  the  child,  caress- 
ing it,  and  at  the  same  time  bursting  into  such  floods  of  tears  ! 

"  My  lord  King  !  "  says  the  Queen,  *'  tell  me  wherefore  thou 
droppest  bitter  tears  ?  " 

"  For  joy !  "  he  replies. 

He  was  afraid  to  tell  her  the  truth,  that  the  Prince  would 
have  to  be  given  up.  Afterwards  he  went  into  the  back  court, 
opened  the  red  coffer,  and  thence  issued  oxen  and  cows,  sheep 
and  rams;  there  were  multitudes  of  all  sorts  of  cattle,  so  that 
all  the  sheds  and  pastures  were  crammed  full.  He  went  into 
the  front  court,  opened  the  green  coffer,  and  there  appeared  a 
great  and  glorious  garden.  What  trees  there  were  in  it  to  be 
6ure  !  The  King  was  so  delighted  that  he  forgot  all  about 
giving  up  his  son. 

Many  years  went  by.  One  day  the  King  took  it  into  his 
head  to  go  for  a  stroll,  and  he  came  to  a  river.     At  that  moment 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  135 

the  same  man  he  had  seen  before  came  out  of  the  water,  and 
said: 

"  You've  pretty  soon  become  forgetful,  lord  King !  Think  a 
.ittle  !  surely  you're  in  my  debt !  " 

The  King  returned  home  full  of  grief,  and  told  all  the  truth  to 
the  Queen  and  the  Prince.  They  all  mourned  and  wept  together, 
but  they  decided  that  there  was  no  help  for  it,  the  Prince  must 
be  given  up.  So  they  took  him  to  the  mouth  of  the  river  and 
there  they  left  him  alone. 

The  Prince  looked  around,  saw  a  footpath,  and  followed  it, 
trusting  God  would  lead  him  somewhere.  He  walked  and  walked, 
and  came  to  a  dense  forest :  in  the  forest  stood  a  hut,  in  the 
hut  lived  a  Baba  Yaga. 

"  Suppose  I  go  in,"  thought  the  Prince,  and  went  in. 

"  Good  day,  Prince  !  "  said  the  Baba  Yaga.  "  Are  you  seek- 
ing work  or  shunning  work  ?  " 

"  Eh,  granny  !  First  give  me  to  eat  and  to  drink,  and  then  ask 
me  questions." 

So  she  gave  him  food  and  drink,  and  the  Prince  told  her 
everything  as  to  whither  he  was  going  and  with  what  purpose. 

Then  the  Baba  Yaga  said :  "  Go,  my  child,  to  the  sea-shore : 
there  will  fly  thither  twelve  spoonbills,  which  will  turn  into  fair 
maidens,  and  begin  bathing ;  do  you  steal  quietly  up  and  lay 
your  hands  on  the  eldest  maiden's  shift.  When  you  have  come 
to  terms  with  her,  go  to  the  Water  King,  and  there  will  meet 
you  on  the  way  Obedalo  and  Opivalo,  and  also  Moroz  Treskum*— 
take  all  of  them  with  you  ;  they  will  do  you  good  service." 

The  Prince  bid  the  Yaga  farewell,  went  to  the  appointed  spot 
on  the  sea-shore,  and  hid  behind  the  bushes.  Presently  twelve 
spoonbills  came  flying  thither,  struck  the  moist  earth,  turned 
into  fair  maidens,  and  began  to  bathe.  The  Prince  stole  the 
eldest  one's  shift,  and  sat  down  behind  a  bush — didn't  budge 
an  inch.  The  girls  finished  bathing  and  came  out  on  the  shore  : 
eleven  of  them  put    on  their    shifts,   turned  into    birds,  and 

*  Three  of  the  well-known  servants  of  Fortunatus.  The  eater-up  (offegeda? 
«=to  devour).  The  drinker-up  {-pit  =to  drink,  opivaCsya,  to  drink  oneself  to  death), 
and  "  Crackling;  Frost." 


136  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

flew  away  home.     There  remained  only  the  eldest,  Vasilissa  the 
Wise.     She  began  praying  and  begging  the  good  youth  : 

"  Do  give  me  my  shift !  "  she  says.  "  You  are  on  your  way 
to  the  house  of  my  father,  the  Water  King.  When  you  come 
I  will  do  you  good  service." 

So  the  Prince  gave  her  back  her  shift,  and  she  immediately 
turned  into  a  spoonbill  and  flew  away  after  her  companions. 
The  Prince  went  further  on ;  there  met  him  by  the  way  three 
heroes — Obedalo,  Opivalo,  and  Moroz  Treskum  ;  he  took  them 
with  him  and  went  on  to  the  Water  King's. 

The  Water  King  saw  him,  and  said  : 

"  Hail,  friend  !  why  have  you  been  so  long  in  coming  to  me  ? 
I  have  grown  weary  of  waiting  for  you.  Now  set  to  work. 
Here  is  your  first  task.  Build  me  in  one  night  a  great  crystal 
bridge,  so  that  it  shall  be  ready  for  use  to-morrow.  If  you  don't 
build  it— off  goes  your  head  !  " 

The  Prince  went  away  from  the  Water  King,  and  burst  into  a 
flood  of  tears.  Vasilissa  the  Wise  opened  the  window  of  her 
upper  chamber,  and  asked  : 

"  What  are  you  crying  about,  Prince  ?  " 

"  Ah!  Vasilissa  the  Wise!  how  can  I  help  crying?  Your 
father  has  ordered  me  to  build  a  crystal  bridge  in  a  single  night, 
and  I  don't  even  know  how  to  handle  an  axe." 

"  No  matter!  lie  down  and  sleep;  the  morning  is  wiser  than 
the'  evening." 

She  ordered  him  to  sleep,  but  she  herself  went  out  on  the 
steps,  and  called  aloud  with  a  mighty  whistling  cry.  Then  from 
all  sides  there  ran  together  carpenters  and  workmen ;  one 
levelled  the  ground,  another  carried  bricks.  Soon  had  they 
built  a  crystal  bridge,  and  traced  cunning  devices  on  it ;  and  then 
they  dispersed  to  their  homes. 

Early  next  morning  Vasilissa  the  Wise  awoke  the  Prince  : 

"  Get  up,  Prince  !  the  bridge  is  ready  :  my  father  will  be 
coming  to  inspect  it  directly." 

Up  jumped  the  Prince,  seized  a  broom,  took  his  place  on  the 
bridge,  and  began  sweeping  here,  clearing  up  there. 

The  Water  King  bestowed  praise  upon  him  : 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  137 

"  Thanks  !  "  says  he.  "You've  done  me  one  service  :  now 
do  another.  Here  is  your  task.  Plant  me  by  to-morrow  a 
garden  green — a  big  and  shady  one  ;  and  there  must  be  birds 
singing  in  the  garden,  and  flowers  blossoming  on  the  trees,  and 
ripe  apples  and  pears  hanging  from  the  boughs." 

Away  went  the  Prince  from  the  Water  King,  all  dissolved  in 
tears.     Vasilissa  the  Wise  opened  her  window  and  asked  : 

"  What  are  you  crying  for,  Prince  ?  " 

"  How  can  I  help  crying  ?  Your  father  has  ordered  me  to 
plant  a  garden  in  one  night !  " 

"That's  nothing!  lie  down  and  sleep  :  the  morning  is  wiser 
than  the  evening." 

She  made  him  go  to  sleep,  but  she  herself  went  out  on  the 
steps,  called  and  whistled  with  a  mighty  whistle.  From  every 
side  there  ran  together  gardeners  of  all  sorts,  and  they  planted 
a  garden  green,  and  in  the  garden  birds  sang,  on  the  trees 
flowers  blossomed,  from  the  boughs  hung  ripe  apples  and  pears, 

Early  in  the  morning  Vasilissa  the  Wise  awoke  the  Prince  : 

"Get  up,  Prince!  the  garden  is  ready:  Papa  is  coming  to 
see  it." 

The  Prince  immediately  snatched  up  a  broom,  and  was  off  to 
the  garden.  Here  he  swept  a  path,  there  he  trained  a  twig. 
The  Water  King  praised  him  and  said. 

"  Thanks,  Prince  !  You're  done  me  right  trusty  service.  So 
choose  yourself  a  bride  from  among  my  twelve  daughters.  They 
are  all  exactly  alike  in  face,  in  hair,  and  in  dress.  If  you  can 
pick  out  the  same  one  three  times  running,  she  shall  be  your 
wife  ;  if  you  fail  to  do  so,  I  shall  have  you  put  to  death." 

Vasilissa  the  Wise  knew  all  about  that,  so  she  found  time  to 
say  to  the  Prince : 

"  The  first  time  I  will  wave  my  handkerchief,  the  second  I 
will  be  arranging  my  dress,  the  third  time  you  will  see  a  fly 
above  my  head." 

And,  so  the  Prince  guessed  which  was  Vasilissa  the  Wise 
three  times  running.  And  he  and  she  were  married,  and  a  wed- 
ding feast  was  got  ready. 

Now  the  Water  King  had  prepared   much  food  of  all  sorts 


133  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

more  than  a  hundred  men  could  get  through.  And  he  ordered 
his  son-in-law  to  see  that  everything  was  eaten.  "  If  anything 
remains  over,  the  worse  for  you  !  "  says  he. 

"  My  Father,"  begs  the  Prince,  "  there's  an  old  fellow  of 
mine  here ;  please  let  him  take  a  snack  with  us." 

"  Let  him  come  !  " 

Immediately  appeared  Obedalo — ate  up  everything,  and 
wasn't  content  then  !  The  Water  King  next  set  out  two  score 
tubs  of  all  kinds  of  strong  drinks,  and  ordered  his  son-in-law  to 
see  that  they  were  all  drained  dry. 

"  My  Father  !  "  begs  the  Prince  again,  "  there's  another  old 
man  of  mine  here,  let  him,  too,  drink  your  health." 

"  Let  him  come  !  " 

Opivalo  appeared,  emptied  all  the  forty  tubs  in  a  twinkling, 
and  then  asked  for  a  drop  more  by  way  of  stirrup-cup.* 

The  Water  King  saw  that  there  was  nothing  to  be  gained  that 
way,  so  he  gave  orders  to  prepare  a  bath-room  for  the  young 
couple — an  iron  bath-room — and  to  heat  it  as  hot  as  possible.  So 
the  iron  bath-room  was  made  hot.  Twelve  loads  of  firewood 
were  set  alight,  and  the  stove  and  the  walls  were  made  red-hot 
— impossible  to  come  within  five  versts  of  it. 

"  My  Father!"  says  the  Prince  ;  "let  an  old  fellow  of  ours 
have  a  scrub  first,  just  to  try  the  bath-room." 

"  Let  him  do  so  !  " 

Moroz  Treskum  went  into  the  bath  room,  blew  into  one  cor 
ner,  blew  in  another — in  a  moment  icicles  were  hanging  there. 
After  him  the  young  couple  also  went  into  the  bath-room,  were 
lathered  and  scrubbed,*  and  then  went  home. 

After  a  time  Vasilissa  said  to  the  Prince,  "  Let  us  get  out  of 
my  father's  power.  He's  tremendously  angry  with  you;  per- 
haps he'll  be  doing  you  some  hurt." 

"  Let  us  go,"  says  the  Prince. 

*  Opokhmyelit 'sya,  which  may  be  rendered,  "  in  order  to  drink  off  the  effects  of 
the  debauch." 

1  The  Russian  baih  somewhat  resembles  the  Turkish.  The  word  here  traslated 
'' to  scrub,"  properly  means  to  rub  and  flog  with  the  soft  twig  used  in  the  baths  for 
that  purpose.  At  the  end  of  the  ceremonies  attended  on  a  Russian  peasant  wedding, 
the  young  couple  always  go  to  the  bath. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  130 

Straightway  they  saddled  their  horses  and  galloped  off  into 
the  open  plain.     They  rode  and  rode  ;  many  an  hour  went  by. 

"Jump  down  from  your  horse,  Prince,  and  lay  your  ear  close 
to  the  earth,"  said  Vasilissa.  "  Cannot  you  hear  a  sound  as  of 
pursuers  ?  " 

The  prince  bent  his  ear  to  the  ground,  but  he  could  hear  no- 
thing. Then  Vasilissa  herself  lighted  down  from  her  good 
steed,  laid  herself  flat  on  the  earth,  and  said  :  "Ah  Prince  !  I  hear 
a  great  noise  as  of  chasing  after  us."  Then  she  turned  the 
horses  into  a  well,  and  herself  into  a  bowl,  and  the  Prince  into 
an  old,  very  old  man.     Up  came  the  pursuers. 

"  Heigh,  old  man  !  "  say  they,  "haven't  you  seen  a  youth  and 
a  maiden  pass  by  ? " 

"  I  saw  them,  my  friends  !  only  it  was  a  long  while  ago.  I  was 
a  youngster  at  the  time  when  they  rode  by." 

"  The  pursuers  returned  to  the  Water  King. 

"There  is  no  trace  of  them,"  they  said,  "  no  news  :  all  we 
saw  was  an  old  man  beside  a  well,  and  a  bowl  floating  on  the 
water." 

"Why  did  not  ye  seize  them  ?"  cried  the  Water  King,  who 
thereupon  put  the  pursuers  to  a  cruel  death,  and  sent  another 
troop  after  the  Prince  and  Vasilissa  the  Wise. 

The  fugitives  in  the  mean  time  had  ridden  far,  far  away. 
Vasilissa  the  Wise  heard  the  noise  made  by  the  fresh  set  of 
pursuers,  so  she  turned  the  Prince  into  an  old  priest,  and  she 
herself  became  an  ancient  church.  Scarcely  did  its  walls  hoid 
together,  covered  all  over  with  moss.  Presently  up  came  the 
pursuers. 

"  Heigh,  old  man !  haven't  you  seen  a  youth  and  a  maiden 
pass  by  ?  " 

"  I  saw  them,  my  own  !  only  it  was  long,  ever  so  long  ago.  I 
was  a  young  man  when  they  rode  by.  It  was  just  while  I  was 
building  this  church." 

So  the  second  set  of  pursuers  returned  to  the  Water  King, 
saying : 

"  There  is  neither  trace  nor  news  of  them,  your  Royal  Majes- 
ty.    All  that  we  saw  was  an  old  priest  and  an  ancient  church. 


140  R  USSIA  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

"  Why  did  not  ye  seize  them  ?  "  cried  the  Water  King  louder 
than  before,  and  having  put  the  pursuers  to  a  cruel  death,  he 
galloped  off  himself  in  pursuit  of  the  Prince  and  Vasilissa  the 
Wise.  This  time  Vasilissa  turned  the  horses  into  a  river  of 
honey  with  kissel  *  banks,  and  changed  the  Prince  into  a  Drake 
and  herself  into  a  grey  duck.  The  Water  King  flung  himself 
on  the  kissel  and  honey-water,  and  ate  and  ate,  and  drank  and 
drank  until  he  burst !     And  so  he  gave  up  the  ghost. 

The  Prince  and  Vasilissa  rode  on,  and  at  length  they  drew 
nigh  to  the  home  of  the  Prince's  parents.     Then  said  Vasilissa, 

"  Go  on  in  front,  Prince,  and  report  your  arrival  to  your 
father  and  mother.  But  I  will  wait  for  you  here  by  the  way- 
side. Only  remember  these  words  of  mine  :  kiss  everyone 
else,  only  don't  kiss  your  sister ;  if  you  do,  you  will  forget  me." 

The  Prince  reached  home,  began  saluting  every  one,  kissed 
his  sister  too — and  no  sooner  had  he  kissed  her  than  from  that 
very  moment  he  forgot  all  about  his  wife,  just  as  if  she  had 
never  entered  into  his  mind. 

Three  days  did  Vasilissa  the  Wise  await  him.  On  the  fourth 
day  she  clad  herself  like  a  beggar,  went  into  the  capital,  and 
took  up  her  quarters  in  an  old  woman's  house.  But  the  Prince 
was  preparing  to  marry  a  rich  Princess,  and  orders  were  given 
to  proclaim  throughout  the  kingdom,  that  all  Christian  people 
were  to  come  to  congratulate  the  bride  and  bridegroom,  each 
one  bringing  a  wheaten  pie  as  a  present.  Well,  the  old  woman 
with  whom  Vasilissa  lodged,  prepared,  like  everyone  else,  to 
sift  flour  and  make  a  pie. 

"  Why  are  you  making  a  pie,  granny  ?  "  asked  Vasilissa. 

"  Is  it  why  ?  you  evidently  don't  know  then.  Our  King  is 
giving  his  son  in  marriage  to  a  rich  princess  :  one  must  go  to 
the  palace  to  serve  up  the  dinner  to  the  young  couple." 

"Come  now!  I,  too,  will  bake  a  pie  and  take  it  to  the 
palace  ;  may  be  the  King  will  make  me  some  present." 

"  Bake  away  in  God's  name  !  "  said  the  old  woman. 

*  A  sort  of  pudding  or  jelly. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  Ш 

Vasilissa  took  flour,  kneaded  dough,  and  made  a  pie.  And 
inside  it  she  put  some  curds  and  a  pair  of  live  doves. 

Well,  the  old  woman  and  Vasilissa  the  Wise  reached  the 
palace  just  at  dinner-time.  There  a  feast  was  in  progress,  one 
lit  for  all  the  world  to  see.  Vasilissa's  pie  was  set  on  the  table, 
but  no  sooner  was  it  cut  in  two  than  out  of  it  flew  the  two 
doves.  The  hen  bird  seized  a  piece  of  curd,  and  her  mate  said 
to  her : 

"  Give  me  some  curds,  too,  Dovey  ! ' 

"No  I  won't,"  replied  the  other  dove:  "else  you'd  forget 
me,  as  the  Prince  has  forgotten  his  Vasilissa  the  Wise  " 

Then  the  Prince  remembered  about  his  wife.  He  jumped 
up  from  table,  caught  her  by  her  white  hands,  and  seated  her 
close  by  his  side.  From  that  time  forward  they  lived  together 
in  all  happiness  and  prosperity. 


[With  this  story  maybe  compared  a  multitude  of  tales  in  very  many  languages. 
In  German  for  instance,  "  Der  Konig  vom  goldenen  Berg,"  (Grimm,  KM.  No.  92. 
See  also  Nos.  51,  56,  113,  1S1,  and  the  opening  of  No.  31),  "Der  Konigssohn  und 
die  Teufelstochter,"  (Haltrich,  No.  26),  and  "  Griinus  Kravalle"  (Wolf's  "  Deutsche 
Hausmarchen,"  N0.29) — the  Norse  "  Mastermaid,"  (Asbjornsen  and  Мое,  No.  46, 
Dasent,  No.  n)  and  "The  Three  Princesses  of  Whiteland,"  (A.  and  M.  No.  9, 
Dasent,  No.  26) — the  Lithuanian  story  (Schleicher,  No.  26,  p.  75)  in  which  a  "  field- 
devil  "  exacts  from  a  farmer  the  promise  of  a  child — the  Wallachian  stories  (Schott. 
Nos.  2  and  15)  in  which  a  devil  obtains  a  like  promise  from  a  woodcutter  and  a  fisher- 
man— the  Modern  Greek  (Hahn,  Nos.  4,  5,  54,  and  6S)  in  which  a  child  is  promised 
to  a  Dervish,  a  Drakos,  the  Devil,  and  a  Demon — and  the  Gaelic  tales  of  "  The 
Battle  of  the  Birds"  and  "  The  Sea-maiden,"  (Campbell,  Nos.  2  and  4)  in  tha 
former  of  which  the  child  is  promised  to  a  Giant,  in  the  latter  to  a  Mermaid.  The 
likeness  between  the  Russian  story  and  the  *'  Battle  of  the  Birds  "  is  very  striki  ig. 
References  to  a  great  many  other  similar  tales  will  be  found  in  Grimm  {KM.  iii.  pp. 
96-7,  and  168-9).  The  group  to  which  all  these  stories  belong  is  linked  with  a  set  of 
tales  about  a  father  who  apprentices  his  son  to  a  wizard,  sometimes  to  the  Devil, 
from  whom  the  youth  escapes  with  great  difficulty.  The  principal  Russian  represen- 
tative of  the  second  set  is  called  "  Eerie  Art,"  "  Khitraya  Nauka,"  (Afanasief,  r. 
No.  22,  vi.  No.  45,  viii.  p.  339). 

To  the  hero's  adventures  while  with  the  Water  King,  and  while  escaping  from 
him,  an  important  parallel  is  offered  by  the  end  of  the  already  mentioned  (at  p.  <}г) 
Indian  story  of  Sringabhuja.  That  prince  asks  Agnisikha,  the  Rakshasa  whom,  ia 
his  crane-form,  he  has  wounded,  to  bestow  upon  him  the  hand  of  his  daughter — the 
maiden  who  had  met  hira  on  his  arrival  at  the  Rakshasa's  palace.  The  demon  pre- 
tends to  consent,  but  only  on  condition  that  the  prince  is  able  to  pick  out  his  love 
from  among  her  numerous  sisters.     This  Sringabhuja  is  able  to  do  in  spite  of  all  the 


142  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

demon's  daughters  being  exactly  alike,  as  she  has  told  him  beforehand  she  will  weal 
her  pearls  on  her  br^w  instead  of  round  her  neck.  Her  father  will  not  remark,  the 
change,  she  savs,  for  being  of  the  demon  race,  he  is  not  very  sharp  witted.  The 
Rikshasa  next  sets  the  pnuce  two  of  the  usual  tasks.  He  is  to  plough  a  great  field, 
and  sow  г  hundred  bushels  of  corn.  When  this,  by  the  daughter's  help,  is  done,  he  is 
told  to  gather  up  the  seed  n <rain.  This  also  the  demon's  daughter  does  for  him,  send- 
ing to  his  aid  a  count. ess  swarm  of  ants.  Lastly  he  is  commanded  to  visit  the  demon's 
brother  and  invite  him  to  the  wedding.  He  does  so,  and  is  pursued  by  the  invited 
guest,  from  whom  he.  escapes  only  by  throwing  behind  him  earth,  water,  thorns,  and 
lastly  fire,  with  all  of  which  he  has  been  provided  by  his  love.  They  produce  cor- 
responding obstacles  which  enable  him  to  get  away  from  the  uncle  of  his  bride.  The 
demon  now  beluves  that  his  proposed  son-in-law  must  be  a  god  in  disguise,  so  he 
gives  his  consent  to  the  marriage.  All  goes  well  for  a  time,  but  at  last  the  prince 
wants  to  go  home,  so  he  and  his  wife  fly  from  her  father's  palace.  Agnisikha  pursues 
them.  She  makes  her  husband  invisible,  while  she  assumes  the  form  of  a  woodman. 
Up  comes  her  angry  sire,  and  asks  for  news  of  the  fugitives.  She  replies  she  has 
seen  none,  her  eyes  being  full  of  tears  caused  by  the  death  of  the  Rakshasa  prince 
Agnisikha.  The  slo  .v-witted  demon  immediately  flies  home  to  find  out  whether  he  is 
really  dead.  Discovering  that  he  is  not,  he  renews  the  pursuit.  Agaii  his  daughter 
renders  her  husband  invisible,  and  assumes  the  form  of  a  messenger  carrying  a  1  .iter 
When  her  father  arrives  and  repeats  his  question,  she  says  she  has  seen  no  one  :  jte 
is  going  with  a  letter  to  his  brother  from  Agnisikha,  who  has  just  been  mortauy 
wounded.  Back  again  home  flies  the  demon  in  great  distress,  anxious  to  find  out 
whether  he  has  really  been  wounded  to  death  or  not.  After  settling  this  question,  hj 
leaves  his  daughter  and  her  husband  in  peace.  See  Professor  Brockhaus  in  ths 
"  Berichte  der  phil.  hist.  Classe  der  K.  Sachs.  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaften," 
1861,  pp.  226-9,  a"d  Professor  Wilson,  "  Essays,  &c,"  ii.  p.  136-8.  Cf.  R.  KShlei 
in  "  Orient  uud  Occident,"  ii.  pp.  107-14.] 

In  another  story  a  king  is  out  hunting  and  becomes  thirsty. 
Seeing  a  spring  near  at  hand,  he  bends  down  and  is  just 
going  to  lap  up  its  water,  when  the  Tsar-Medve'd,  a  King- 
Bear,  seizes  him  by  the  beard.  The  king  is  unable  to  free 
himself  from  his  grasp,  and  is  obliged  to  promise  as  his 
ransom  "  that  which  he  knows  not  of  at  home,"  which  turns 
out  to  be  a  couple  of  children — a  boy  and  a  girl — who  have 
been  born  during  his  absence.  In  vain  does  he  attempt  to 
save  the  twins  from  their  impending  fate,  by  concealing 
them  ki  a  secret  abode  constructed  for  that  purpose  under- 
ground. In  the  course  of  time  the  King-Bear  arrives  to 
claim  them,  finds  out  their  hiding-place,  digs  them  up,  and 
carries  them  off  on  his  back  to  a  distant  region  where  no 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  143 

man  lives.  During  his  absence  they  attempt  to  escape 
being  carried  through  the  air  on  the  back  of  a  friendly, 
falcon,  but  the  King-Bear  sees  them,  "  strikes  his  head  against 
the  earth,  and  burns  the  falcon's  wings."  The  twins  fall 
to  the  ground,  and  are  carried  by  the  King-Bear  to  his 
home  amid  inaccessible  mountains.  There  they  make  a 
second  attempt  at  escape,  trusting  this  time  to  an  eagle's 
aid  ;  but  it  meets  with  exactly  the  same  fate  as  their  first 
trial.  At  last  they  are  rescued  by  a  bull-calf,  which  suc- 
ceeds in  baffling  all  the  King-Bear's  efforts  to  recover  them. 
At  the  end  of  their  perilous  journey  the  bull-calf  tells  the 
young  prince  to  cut  its  throat,  and  burn  its  carcase.  He 
unwillingly  consents,  and  from  its  ashes  spring  a  horse, 
a  dog,  and  an  apple-tree,  all  of  which  play  important  parts 
in  the  next  act  of  the  drama.* 

In  one  of  the  variants  of  the  Water  King  story,  |  the 
seizer  of  the  drinking  kings'  beard  is  not  called  the  Aforskoi 
Tsarbut  Chudo  Morskoe,  a  Water  Chudo,  whose  name  re- 
calls to  mind  the  Chudo  Yudo  we  have  already  met  with.  X 
The  Prince  who  is  obliged,  in  consequence  of  his  father's 
promise,  to  surrender  himself  to  the  Water  Giant,  falls  in 
love  with  a  maiden  whom  he  finds  in  that  potentate's 
palace,  and  who  is  an  enchantress  whom  the  Chudo  has 

*  Afansief,  v.  No.  28.  In  the  preceding  story,  No.  27,  the  king  makes  no  promise. 
He  hides  his  children  in  (or  upon)  a  pillar,  hoping  to  conceal  them  from  a  devouring 
bear,  whose  fur  is  of  iron.  The  bear  finds  them  and  carries  them  off.  Л  horse  and 
some  geese  vainly  attempt  their  rescue  ;  a  bull-calf  succeeds,  as  in  the  former  case. 
In  another  variant  the  enemy  is  an  iron  wolf.  A  king  had  promised  his  children  a 
wolf.  Unable  to  find  a  live  one,  he  had  one  made  of  iron  and  gave  it  to  his  children. 
After  a  time  it  came  to  life  and  Degan  destroying  all  it  found,  etc.  An  interest- 
ing explanation  of  the  stories  of  this  class  in  which  they  are  treated  as  nature- 
myths,  is  given  by  A.  de  Gubernatis  in  his  "  Zoological  Mythology,"  chap.  i.. 
sect.  4. 

t  Khudyakof,  No.  17. 

X  It  has  already  been  observed  that  the  word  chudo,  which  now  means  a  marveJ  or 
prodigy,  formerly  meant  a  giant- 


14-1  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

stolen.  She  turns  herself  into  a  ring,  which  he  carries 
about  with  him,  and  eventually,  after  bis  escape  from  the 
Chudo,  she  becomes  his  bride. 

In  another  story,*  the  being  who  obtains  a  child  from 
one  of  the  incautious  fathers  of  the  Jephthah  type  who 
abound  in  popular  fiction,  is  of  a  very  singular  nature.  A 
merchant  is  flying  across  a  river  on  the  back  of  an  eagle, 
when  he  drops  a  magic  "  snuff-box,"  which  had  been  en- 
trusted to  his  charge  by  that  bird,  and  it  disappears  beneath 
the  waters.  At  the  eagle's  command,  the  crayfish  search  for 
it,  and  bring  back  word  that  it  is  lying  "on  the  knees  of  an 
Idol."  The  eagle  summons  the  Idol,  and  demands  the  snuff 
box.  Thereupon  the  Idol  says  to  the  merchant — "  Give  me 
what  you  do  not  know  of  at  home  ?  "  The  merchant  agrees 
and  the  Idol  gives  him  back  his  snuff-box. 

In  some  of  the  variants  of  the  story,  the  influence  of 
ideas  connected  with  Christianity  makes  itself  apparent  in 
the  names  given  to  the  actors.  Thus  in  the  "  Moujik  and 
Anastasia  Adovna,"  f  it  is  no  longer  a  king  of  the  waters,  but 
a  devil's  imp,"  %  who  bargains  with  the  thirsting  father  for 
his  child,  and  the  swan-maiden  whose  shift  the  devoted 
youth  steals  bears  the  name  of  Adovna,  the  daughter  of 
Ad  or  Hades.  In  "  The  Youth,"§  a  moujik,  who  has  lost  his 
way  in  a  forest  makes  the  rash  promise  to  a  man  who 
enables  him  to  cross. a  great  river  ;  "  and  that  man  (says  the 
story)  was  a  devil."  ||  We  shall  meet  with  other  instances 
further  on  of  parents  whose  "  hasty  words  "  condemn  their 

*  Erlenvein,  No.  6,  pp.  30-32,  The  Russian  word  idol  is,  identical  with  our  own 
adaptation  of  eiStokov. 

f  Khudyakof,  No.  i3- 

t  Zhidcnok,  strictly  the  cub  of  a  zhid,  a  word  which  properly  means  a  Jew,  but  is 
used  here  for  a  devil. 

§  Khudyakof,  No.  118. 

II  Chort,  a  word  which,  as  has  been  stated,  sometimes  means  a  demon,  sometimes 
the  Devi}. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  145 

children  to  captivity  among  evil  spirits.  In  one  of  the 
stories  of  this  class,*  the  father  is  a  hunter  who  is  perishing 
with  cold  one  night,  and  who  makes  the  usual  promise  as 
the  condition  of  his  being  allowed  to  warm  himself  at  a  fire 
guarded  by  a  devil.  Being  in  consequence  of  this  deprived 
of  a  son,  he  becomes  very  sad,  and  drinks  himself  to  death. 
"  The  priest  will  not  bury  his  sinful  body,  so  it  is  thrust  into 
a  hole  at  a  crossway,"  and  he  falls  into  the  power  of  "  that 
very  same  devil,"  who  turns  him  into  a  horse,  and  uses  him 
as  a  beast  of  burden.  At  last  he  is  released  by  his  son, 
who  has  forced  the  devil  to  free  him  after  several  adventures 
— one  of  them  being  a  fight  with  the  evil  spirit  in  the  shape 
of  a  three-headed  snake. 

In  the  Hindoo  story  of  "  Brave  Seventee  Bai,"  fthat  hero- 
ine kills  "  a  very  large  Cobra  "  which  comes  out  of  a  lake. 
Touching  the  waters  with  a  magic  diamond  taken  from  the 
snake,  she  sees  them  roll  back  "in  a  wall  on  either  hand," 
between  which  she  passes  into  a  splendid  garden.  In  it 
she  finds  a  lovely  girl  who  proves  to  be  the  Cobra's  daughter 
and  who  is  delighted  to  hear  of  her  serpent-father's  death. 
Demon  haunted  waters,  which  prove  fatal  to  mortals 
who  bathe  in  or  drink  of  them,  often  occur  in  oriental 
fiction.  In  one  of  the  Indian  stories,  for  instance,  %  a  king  is 
induced  to  order  his  escort  to  bathe  in  a  lake  which  is  the 
abode  of  a  Rakshasa  or  demon.  They  leap  into  the  watei 
simultaneously,  and  are  all  devoured  by  the  terrible  man- 
eater.  From  the  assaults  of  such  a  Rakshasa  as  this  it  was 
that  Buddha,  who  was  at  the  time  a  monkey,  preserved 

*  Afanasief.  viii.  p.  343. 

t  "  Old  Deccan  Days,"  pp.  34-5.  Compare  with  the  conduct  of  the  Cobra's 
daughter  that  of  Angaraka,  the  daughter  of  the  Daitya  who,  under  the  form  of  a  wild 
boar,  is  chased  underground  by  Chandasena.  Brockhaus's  "  Mahrchensammlung  de» 
Somadeva  Bhatta,"  1843,  vol.  i-  pp.  110-13. 

%  "  Panchatantra,"  v.  10. 

IO 


146  R  US  SI  А  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

himself  and  80,000  of  his  brother  monkeys,  by  suggesting 
that  they  should  drink  from  the  tank  in  which  the  demon 
lay  in  wait  for  them,  "  through  reeds  previously  made  com- 
pletely hollow  by  their  breath."  * 

From  these  male  personifications  of  evil — from  the 
Snake,  Koshchei,  and  the  Water  King — we  will  now  turn 
to  their  corresponding  female  forms.  By  far  the  most  im- 
portant beings  of  the  latter  class  are  those  malevolent  en- 
chantresses who  form  two  closely  related  branches  of  the 
same  family.  Like  their  sisters  all  over  the  world,  they 
are,  as  a  general  rule,  old,  hideous,  and  hateful.  They 
possess  all  kinds  of  supernatural  powers,  but  their  wits  are 
often  dull.  They  wage  constant  war  with  mankind,  but 
the  heroes  of  storyland  find  them  as  easily  overcome  as 
the  males  of  their  family.  In  their  general  character  they 
bear  a  strong  resemblance  to  the  Giantesses,  Lamias, 
female  Trolls,  Ogresses,  Dragonesses,  &c,  of  Europe,  but 
in  some  of  their  traits  they  differ  from  those  well-known 
beings,  and  therefore  they  are  worthy  of  a  detailed  notice. 

In  several  of  the  stories  which  have  already  been 
quoted,  a  prominent  part  is  played  by  the  Baba  Yaga,  a 
female  fiend  whose  name  has  given  rise  to  much  philo- 
logical discussion  of  a  somewhat  unsatisfactory  nature. t 

*  Upham's  "  Sacred  and  Historical  Books  of  Ceylon,"  iii.  287. 

t  Afanasief  says  (P.V.S.  iii.  5S8),  "As  regards  the  word  yaga  (yega,  Polish 
fedza,  jadza,  jedzi-baba,  Slovak,  jenzi,jenzi,  jezi-baba,  Bohemian,  jezinka,  Galician 
yazya)  it  answers  to  the  Sanskrit  ahi  =  snake." 

Shchepkin  (in  his  work  on  "  Russian  Fable-lore,"  p.  109)  says  :  "  Yaga,  instead 
of  yagaya,  means  properly  noisy,  scolding,  and  must  be  connected  with  the  root 
yagat'  =  to  brawi,  to  scold,  still  preserved  in  Siberia.  The  accuracy  of  this  etymology 
is  confirmed  by  the  use,  in  the  speech  of  the  common  people,  of  the  designation  Yaga 
Baba  for  a  quarrelsome,  scolding  old  woman." 

Kastorsky,  in  his  "  Slavonic  Mythology,"  p.  138,  starts  a  theory  of  his  own. 
"The  name  Yaga  Baba,  I  take  to  be yakaya  baba,  nyeyakaya  baba,  and  I  render  i; 
by  auu;  qu&dam."  Bulgarin  (Rossiya,  ii.  322)  refers  the  name  to  a  Finnish  root. 
According  to  him,  "  Jagga-Utiui,  in   Esthonian,  means  to  quarrel  or  brawl,  jagga- 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  Ш 

Her  appearance  is  that  of  a  tall,  gaunt  hag,  with  dishevelled 
hair.  Sometimes  she  is  seen  lying  stretched  out  from  one 
corner  to  the  other  of  a  miserable  hut,  through  the  ceiling 
of  which  passes  her  long  iron  nose ;  the  hut  is  supported 
"  by  fowl's  legs,"  and  stands  at  the  edge  of  a  forest  towards 
which  its  entrance  looks.  When  the  proper  words  are  ad- 
dressed to  it,  the  hut  revolves  upon  its  slender  supports, 
so  as  to  turn  its  back  instead  of  its  front  to  the  forest. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  next  story,  the  Baba  Yaga  appears 
as  the  mistress  of  a  mansion,  which  stands  in  a  courtyard 
enclosed  by  a  fence  made  of  dead  men's  bones.  When 
she  goes  abroad  she  rides  in  a  mortar,  which  she  urges  on 
with  a  pestle,  while  she  sweeps  away  the  traces  of  her 
flight  with  a  broom.  She  is  closely  connected  with  the 
Snake  in  different  forms  j  in  many  stories,  indeed,  the 
leading  part  has  been  ascribed  by  one  narrator  to  a  Snake 
and  by  another  to  a  Baba  Yaga.  She  possesses  the  usual 
magic  apparatus  by  which  enchantresses  work  their  won- 
ders ;  the  Day  and  the  Night  (according  to  the  following 
story)  are  among  her  servants,  the  entire  animal  world  lies 
at  her  disposal.  On  the  whole  she  is  the  most  prominent 
among  the  strange  figures  with  which  the  Skazkas  make  us 
acquainted.  Of  the  stories  which  especially  relate  to  her 
the  following  may  be  taken  as  a  fair  specimen. 

lemiite  means  quarrelling  or  brawling."  There  is  some  similarity  between  the  Rus- 
sian form  of  the  word,  and  the  Singalese  name  for  a  (male)  demon,  yaht,  which  is 
derived  from  the  Pali  yakkho,  as  is  the  synonymous  term  yakseya  from  the  Sanskrit 
yakska  (see  the  valuable  paper  on  Demonology  in  Ceylon  by  Dandris  de  Silva  Goon- 
eratne  Modliar  in  the  "  Journal  of  the  Ceylon  Branch  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society," 
1865-6).  Some  Slavonic  philologists  derive  yaga  from  a  root  meaning  to  eat  (in  Rus- 
sian yes?).  This  corresponds  with  the  derivation  of  the  word  yaksha  contained  in 
the  following  legend  :  "  The  Vishnu  Purana,  i.  5,  narrates  that  they  (the  Yaksha.) 
were  produced  by  Brahma  as  beings  emaciate  with  hunger,  of  hideous  aspect,  and 
with  long  beards,  and  that,  crying  out  '  Let  us  eat,'  they  were  denominated  Yaksha? 
(fl.jaksk,  to  eat).  "  Monier  Williams's  "Sanskrit  Dictionary,"  p.  Soi.  In  character 
the  Yaga  often  resembles  a  Rakshasf. 


US  R USSIA N  FOLK-  ТА LES. 


The  Baba  Yaga.* 


Once  upon  a  time  there  was  an  old  couple.  The  husband  lost 
his  wife  and  married  again.  But  he  had  a  daughter  by  the  first 
marriage,  a  young  girl,  and  she  found  no  favor  in  the  eyes  of 
her  evil  step-mother,  who  used  to  beat  her,  and  consider  how  she 
could  get  her  killed  outright.  One  day  the  father  went  away 
somewhere  or  other,  so  the  step-mother  said  to  the  girl,  "  Go  to 
your  aunt,  my  sister,  and  ask  her  for  a  needle  and  thread  to  make 
you  a  shift." 

Now  that  aunt  was  a  Baba  Yaga.  Well,  the  girl  was  no  fool, 
so  she  went  to  a  real  aunt  of  hers  first,  and  says  she : 

"  Good  morning,  auntie  !  " 

"  Good  morning,  my  dear  !  what  have  you  come  for  ?  " 

"  Mother  has  sent  me  to  her  sister,  to  ask  for  a  needle  and 
thread  to  make  me  a  shift." 

Then  her  aunt  instructed  her  what  to  do.  "  There  is  a  birch- 
tree  there,  niece,  which  would  hit  you  in  the  eye — you  must  tie 
a  ribbon  round  it ;  there  are  doors  which  would  creak  and  bang 
— you  must  pour  oil  on  their  hinges ;  there  are  dogs  which  would 
tear  you  in  pieces — you  must  throw  them  these  rolls  ;  there  is  a 
cat  which  would  scratch  your  eyes  out — you  must  give  it  a  piece 
of  bacon." 

So  the  girl  went  away,  and  walked  and  walked,  till  she  came 
to  the  place.  There  stood  a  hut,  and  in  it  sat  weaving  the  Baba 
Yaga,  the  Bony-shanks. 

"Good  morning,  auntie,"  says  the  girl. 

"  Good  morning,  my  dear,"  replies  the  Baba  Yaga. 

"  Mother  has  sent  me  to  ask  you  for  a  needle  and  thread  to 
"lake  me  a  shift." 

"Very  well ;  sit  down  and  weave  a  little  in  the  meantime." 

So  the  girl  sat  down  behind  the  loom,  and  the  Baba  Yaga 
ient  outside,  and  said  to  her  servant-maid  : 

"  Go  and  heat  the  bath,  and  get  my  niece  washed  ;  and  mind 
vou  look  sharp  after  her.     I  want  to  breakfast  off  her." 

*  Afanasief,  i.  No.  3  b.     From  the  Voroneje  Government- 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  149 

Well,  the  girl  sat  there  in  such  a  fright  that  she  was  as  much 
dead  as  alive.  Presently  she  spoke  imploringly  to  the  servant- 
maid,  saying: 

"  Kinswoman  dear,  do  please  wet  the  firewood  instead  of 
making  it  burn ;  and  fetch  the  water  for  the  bath  in  a  sieve." 
And  she  made  her  a  present  of  a  handkerchief. 

The  Baba  Yaga  waited  awhile  ;  then  she  came  to  the  window 
and  asked : 

"  Are  you  weaving,  niece  ?  are  you  weaving,  my  dear  ? " 

"  Oh  yes,  dear  aunt,  I'm  weaving."  So  the  Baba  Yaga  went 
away  again,  and  the  girl  gave  the  Cat  a  piece  of  bacon,  and 
asked : 

"  Is  there  no  way  of  escaping  from  here  ?  " 

"  Here's  a  comb  for  you  and  a  towel,"  said  the  Cat ;  "  take 
them,  and  be  off.  The  Baba  Yaga  will  pursue  you,  but  you  must 
lay  your  ear  on  the  ground,  and  when  you  hear  that  she  is  close 
at  hand,  first  of  all  throw  down  the  towel.  It  will  become  a  wide, 
wide  river.  And  if  the  Baba  Yaga  gets  across  the  river,  and 
tries  to  catch  you,  then  \ou  must  lay  your  ear  on  the  ground 
again,  and  when  you  hear  that  she  is  close  at  hand,  throw  down 
the  comb.  It  will  become  a  dense,  dense  forest ;  through  that 
she  won't  be  able  to  force  her  way  anyhow." 

The  girl  took  the  towel  and  the  comb  and  fled.  The  dogs 
would  have  rent  her,  but  she  threw  them  the  rolls,  and  they  let 
her  go  by ;  the  doors  would  have  begun  to  bang,  but  she  poured 
oil  on  their  hinges,  and  they  let  her  pass  through  ;  the  birch-tree 
would  have  poked  her  eyes  out,  but  she  tied  the  ribbon  around 
it,  and  it  let  her  pass  on.  And  the  Cat  sat  down  to  the  loom, 
and  worked  away;  muddled  everything  about,  if  it  didn't  do 
much  weaving.  Up  came  the  Baba  Yaga  to  the  window,  and 
asked: 

"  Are  you  weaving,  niece  ?  are  you  weaving,  my  dear  ?  " 

"  I'm  weaving,  dear  aunt,  I'm  weaving,"  gruffly  replied  the 
Cat. 

The  Baba  Yaga  rushed  into  the  hut,  saw  that  the  girl  was 
gone,  and  took  to  beating  the  Cat,  and  abusing  it  for  not  having 


150  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

scratched  the  girl's  eyes  out.  "  Long  as  I've  served  you,"  said 
thevCat,  "you've  never  given  me  so  much  as  a  bone  ;  but  she 
gave  me  bacon."  Then  the  Baba  Yaga  pounced  upon  the  dogs, 
on  the  doors,  on  the  birch-tree,  and  on  the  servant-maid,  and  set 
to  work  to  abuse  them  all,  and  to  knock  them  about.  Then  the 
dogs  said  to  her,  "  Long  as  we've  served  you,  you've  never  so 
much  as  pitched  us  a  burnt  crust;  but  she  gave  us  rolls  to  eat." 
And  the  doors  said,  "  Long  as  we've  served  you,  you've  never 
poured  even  a  drop  of  water  on  our  hinges  ;  but  she  poured  oil 
on  us."  The  birch-tree  said,  "Long  as  I've  served  you,  you've 
never  tied  a  single  thread  round  me  ;  but  she  fastened  a  ribbon 
around  me."  And  the  servant-maid  said,  "  Long  as  I've  served 
you,  you've  never  given  me  so  much  as  a  rag;  but  she  gave  me 
a  handkerchief." 

The  Baba  Yaga,  bony  of  limb,  quickly  jumped  into  her 
mortar,  sent  it  flying  along  with  the  pestle,  sweeping  away  the 
while  all  traces  of  its  flight  with  a  broom,  and  set  off  in  pursuit 
of  the  girl.  Then  the  girl  put  her  ear  to  the  ground,  and  when 
she  heard  that  the  Baba  Yaga  was  chasing  her,  and  was  now 
close  at  hand,  she  flung  down  the  towel.  And  it  became  a  wide, 
such  a  wide  river  !  Up  came  the  Baba  Yaga  to  the  river,  and 
gnashed  her  teeth  with  spite  ;  then  she  went  home  for  her  oxen, 
and  drove  them  to  the  river.  The  oxen  drank  up  every  drop  of 
the  river,  and  then  the  Baba  Yaga  began  the  pursuit  anew. 
But  the  girl  put  her  ear  to  the  ground  again,  and  when  she  heard 
that  the  Baba  Yaga  was  near,  she  flung  down  the  comb,  and 
instantly  a  forest  sprang  up,  such  an  awfully  thick  one  !  The 
Baba  Yaga  began  gnawing  away  at  it,  but  however  hard  she 
worked,  she  couldn't  gnaw  her  way  through  it,  so  she  had  to  go 
Deck  again. 

But  by  this  time  the  girl's  father  had  returned  home,  and  he 
ssked : 

"  Where's  my  daughter  ?  " 

"  She's  gone  to  her  aunt's,"  replied  her  stepmother. 

Soon  afterwards  the  girl  herself  came  running  home. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  "  asked  her  father. 

'' Ah,  father !"  she  said,  "  mother  sent  me  to  aunt's  to  ask 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  151 

for  a  needle  and  thread  to  make  me  a  shift.  But  aunt's  a  Baba 
Yaga,  and  she  wanted  to  eat  me  ! ' 

"  And  how  did  you  get  away,  daughter  ? " 

"  Why  like  this,"  said  the  girl,  and  explained  the  whole 
/natter.  As  soon  as  her  father  had  heard  all  about  it,  he  became 
wroth  with  his  wife,  and  shot  her.  But  he  and  his  daughter 
lived  on  and  nourished,  and  everything  went  well  with  them. 

In  one  of  the  numerous  variants  of  this  story*  the 
heroine  is  sent  by  her  husband's  mother  to  the  Baba  Yaga's, 
and  the  advice  which  saves  her  comes  from  her  husband. 
The  Baba  Yaga  goes  into  another  room  "  in  order  to 
sharpen  her  teeth,"  and  while  she  is  engaged  in  that  opera- 
tion the  girl  escapes,  having  previously — by  the  advice  of 
the  Cat,  to  which  she  had  given  a  lump  of  butter — spat 
under  the  threshold.  The  spittle  answers  for  her  in  her 
absence,  behaving  as  do,  in  other  folk-tales,  drops  of  blood, 
01  rags  dipped  in  blood,  or  apples,  or  eggs,  or  beans,  or 
stone  images,  or  wooden  puppets. f 

The  magic  comb  and  towel,  by  the  aid  of  which  the  girl 
effects  her  escape,  constantly  figure  in  Skazkas  of  this  class, 
and  always  produce  the  required  effect.  A  brush,  also,  is 
frequently  introduced,  from  each  bristle  of  which  springs  up 
a  wood.  In  one  story,  however,  the  brush  gives  rise  to 
mountains,  and  a  golik,  or  bath-room  whisk,  turns  into  a 
forest.  The  towel  is  used,  also,  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
structing or  annihilating  a  bridge.  Similar  instruments  are 
found  in  the  folk-tales  of  every  land,  whether  they  appear 
as  the  brush,  comb,  and  mirror  of  the  German  water- 
sprite  •  %  or  the  rod,  stone,  and  pitcher  of  water  of  the 
Norse   Troll ;  §  or  the   knife,  comb,  and   handful   of   salt 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  60. 

t  See  Grimm,  KM.  iii.  97-8.     Cf.  R.  Kohler  in  "  Orient  und  Occident,''  ii       -v. 

%  Grimm,  No.  79.     "  Die  Wassernbce." 

§  Asbjornsen  and  Мое,  No.  14.     Dasent.  p.  362.     "  The  Wirlo  vV  '.'■  ;:..' 


152  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

which,  in  the  Modern  Greek  story,  save  Asterinos  and 
Pulja  from  their  fiendish  mother ;  *  or  the  twig,  the  stone, 
and  the  bladder  of  water,  found  in  the  ear  of  the  filly, 
which  saves  her  master  from  the  Gaelic  giant  f  or  the 
brush,  comb,  and  egg,  the  last  of  which  produces  a  frozen 
lake  with  "  mirror-smooth  "  surface,  whereon  the  pursuing 
Old  Prussian  witch  slips  and  breaks  her  neck  ;  t  or  the  wand 
which  causes  a  river  to  flow  and  a  mountain  to  rise 
between  the  youth  who  waves  it  and  the  "wicked  old 
Rakshasa"  who  chases  him  in  the  Deccan  story  ;  §  or  the 
handful  of  earth,  cup  of  water,  and  dry  sticks  and  match, 
which  impede  and  finally  destroy  the  Rakshasa  in  the 
almost  identical  episode  of  Somadeva's  tale  of  "  The  Prince 
of  Varddhamana."  || 

In  each  instance  they  appear  to  typify  the  influence 
which  the  supernatural  beings  to  whom  they  belonged  were 
supposed  to  exercise  over  the  elements.  It  has  been 
thought  strange  that  such  stress  should  be  laid  on  the 
employment  of  certain  toilet-articles,  to  the  use  of  which 
the  heroes  of  folk-tales  do  not  appear  to  have  been  greatly 
addicted.  But  it  is  evident  that  like  produces  like  in  the 
transformation  in  question.  In  the  oldest  form  of  the 
story,  the  Sanskrit,  a  handful  of  earth  turns  into  a  moun- 
tain, a  cup  of  water  into  a  river.  Now,  metaphorically 
speaking,  a  brush  may  be  taken  as  a  miniature  wood  ;  the 
common  use  of  the  term  brushwood  is  a  proof  of  the  general 
acceptance  of  the  metaphor.  A  comb  does  not  at  first 
sight  appear  to  resemble  a  mountain,  but  its  indented  out- 

*  Hahn,  No.  i. 

t  Campbell's  "  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands,"  No.  2. 

I  Toppen's  "  Aberglauben  aus  Masuren,"  p.  146. 
§  Miss  Frere's  "  Old  Deccan  Days,"  p.  63. 

II  "  Kathasaritsagara,"  vii.  ch.  xxxix.  Translated  by  Wilson,  "  Essays,"  ii. 
137.  Cf .  Bi-ockhaus  in  the  previously  quoted  "  Berichte,"  1861,  p.  22?  .9.  Foi 
other  forms,  »te  R   К  oilier  in  "  Orient  und  Occident,"  vol.  ii.  p.  112. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  153 

line  may  have  struck  the  fancy  of  many  primitive  peoples 
as  being  a  likeness  to  a  serrated  mountain  range.  Thence 
comes  it  that  in  German  Kamm  means  not  only  a  comb 
but  also  (like  the  Spanish  Sierra)  a  mountain  ridge  or 
crest.* 

In  one  of  the  numerous  stories  f  about  the  Baba  Yaga, 
four  heroes  are  wandering  about  the  world  together,  when 
they  come  to  a  dense  forest  in  which  a  small  izba,  or  hut,  is 
twirling  round  on  "  a  foul's  leg."  Ivan,  the  youngest  of  the 
party,  utters  the  magical  formula  "  Izbushka,  Izbushka  ! 
stand  with  back  to  the  forest  and  front  towards  us,"  and 
"  the  hut  faces  towards  them,  its  doors  and  windows  open  of 
their  own  accord."  The  heroes  enter  and  find  it  empty. 
One  of  the  party  then  remains  indoors,  while  the  rest  go 
out  to  the  chase.  The  hero  who  is  left  alone  prepares  a 
meal,  and  then,  "  after  washing  his  head,  sits  down  by  the 
window  to  comb  his  hair."  Suddenly  a  stone  is  lifted,  and 
from  under  it  appears  a  Baba  Yaga,  driving  in  her  mortar, 
with  a  dog  yelping  at  her  heels.  She  enters  the  hut  and, 
after  some  short  parley,  seizes  her  pestle,  and  begins 
beating  the  hero  with  it  until  he  falls  prostrate.  Then  she 
cuts  a  strip  out  of  his  back,  eats  up  the  whole  of  the  viands 
he  has  prepared  for  his  companions,  and  disappears.  After 
a  time  the  beaten  hero  recovers  his  senses,  "  ties  up  his  head 
with  a  handkerchief,"  and  sits  groaning  until  his  comrades 
return.  Then  he  makes  some  excuse  for  not  having  got 
any  supper  ready  for  them,  but  says  nothing  about  what 
has  really  happened  to  him. 

On  the  next  day  the  second  hero  is  treated  in  the  same 
manner  by  the  Baba  Yaga,  and  on  the  day  after  that  the 
third  undergoes  a  similar  humiliation.     But  on  the  fourth 

*  See,   however,    Mr.   Campbell's    remarks  on  this  subject,  in   "  Tales  of    the 
West  Highlands,"  i.  pp-  lxxvii-lxxxi. 
t  Afanasief,  viii.  No.  6. 


154  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

day  it  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  young  Ivan  to  stay  in  the  hut 
•alone.  The  Baba  Yaga  appears  as  usual,  and  begins 
thumping -him  with  her  pestle;  but  he  snatches  it  from 
her,  beats  her  almost  to  death  with  it,  cuts  three  strips  out 
of  her  back,  and  then  locks  her  up  in  a  closet.  When  his 
comrades  return,  they  are  surprised  to  find  him  unhurt, 
and  a  meal  prepared  for  them,  but  they  ask  no  questions. 
After  supper  they  all  take  a  bath,  and  then  Ivan  remarks 
that  each  of  his  companions  has  had  a  strip  cut  out  of  his 
back.  This  leads  to  a  full  confession,  on  hearing  which 
Ivan  "  runs  to  the  closet,  takes  those  strips  out  of  the 
Baba  Yaga,  and  applies  them  to  their  backs,"  which  im- 
mediately become  cured.  He  then  hangs  up  the  Baba 
Yaga  by  a  cord  tied  to  one  foot,  at  which  cord  all  the  party 
shoot.  At  length  it  is  severed,  and  she  drops.  As  soon 
as  she  touches  the  ground,  she  runs  to  the  stone  from  under 
which  she  had  appeared,  lifts  it,  and  disappears.* 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  very  similar  to  that  of  "  Norka," 
which  has  already  been  given,  only  instead  of  the  beast  of 
that  name  we  have  the  Baba  Yaga,  whom  Ivan  finds  asleep, 
with  a  magic  sword  at  her  head.  Following  the  advice  of 
her  daughters,  three  fair  maidens  whom  he  meets  in  her 
palace,  Ivan  does  not  attempt  to  touch  the  magic  sword 
while  she  sleeps.  But  he  awakes  her  gently,  and  offers 
her  two  golden  apples  on  a  silver  dish.  She  lifts  her  head 
and  opens  her  mouth,  whereupon  he  seizes  the  sword  and 
cuts  her  head  off.  As  is  usual  in  the  stories  of  this  class, 
his  comrades,  after  hoisting  the  maidens  aloft,  cut  the  cord 
and  let  him  fall  back  into  the  abyss.  But  he  escapes,  and 
eventually  "  he  slays  all  the  three  heroes,  and  flings  their 
bodies  on  the  plain  for  wild  beasts  to  devour."  This 
Skazka  is  one  of  the  many  versions  of  a  widespread  tale, 

*  See  the  third  tale,  of  the  "  Siddhi  Kiir,"  Julg's  "  Kalm.  Marcher)      ->p.  17-19. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  155 

which  tells  how  the  youngest  of  a  party,  usually  consisting 
of  three  persons,  overcomes  some  supernatural  foe,  gener- 
ally a  dwarf,  who  had  been  more  than  a  match  for  his 
companions.  The  most  important  of  these  versions  is  the 
Lithuanian  story  of  the  carpenter  who  overcomes  a  Laume 
— a  being  in  many  respects  akin  to  the  Baba  Yaga — who 
has  proved  too  strong  for  his  comrades,  Perkun  and  the 
Devil.* 

The  practice  of  cutting  strips  from  an  enemy's  back  is 
frequently  referred  to  in  the  Skazkas — much  more  fre- 
quently than  in  the  German  and  Norse  stories.  It  is  not 
often  that  such  strips  are  turned  to  good  account,  but  in 
the  Skazka  with  which  we  have  just  been  dealing,  Ivan 
finding  the  rope  by  which  he  is  being  lowered  into  the 
abyss  too  short,  ties  to  the  end  of  it  the  three  strips  he 
has  cut  from  the  Baba  Yaga's  back,  and  so  makes  it  suffi- 
ciently long.  They  are  often  exacted  as  the  penalty  of 
losing  a  wager,  as  well  in  the  Skazkas  as  elsewhere. f  In 
a  West-Slavonian  story  about  a  wager  of  this  kind,  the 
winner  cuts  off  the  loser's  nose.t  In  the  Gaelic  stories  it 
is  not  an  uncommon  incident  for  a  man  to  have  "  a  strip 
of  skin  cut  off  him  from  his  crown  to  his  sole."§ 

The  Baba  Yaga  generally  kills  people  in  order  to  eat 
them.  Her  house  is  fenced  about  with  the  bones  of  the 
men  whose  flesh  she  has  devoured  ;  in  one  story  she  offers 

*  Schleicher's  "  Litauische  Marchen,"  No.  39.  (I  have  given  an  analysis  of  the 
story  in  the  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  p.  101.)  In  the  variant  of  the  story  in 
No.  38,  the  comrades  are  the  hero  Martin,  a  smith,  and  a  tailor.  Their  supernatural 
foe  is  a  small  gnome  with  a  very  long  beard.  He  closely  resembles  the  German 
"  Erdmanneken  "  (Grimm,  No.  91),  and  the  "  Mannchen,"  in  "  Der  starke  Hans" 
(Grimm,  No.  166.) 

t  Hahn,  No.  и.     Schleicher,  No.  20,  &c,  &c.  X  Wenzig,  No.  2. 

§  "Tales  of  the  West  Highlands,"  ii.  p.  15.  Mr.  Campbell  says,  "  I  believe 
such  a  mode  of  torture  can  be  traced  amongst  the  Scandinavians,  who  once  owned 
the  Western  Islands."  But  the  Gaelic  "Binding  of  the  T  ree  Smalls,"  is  unknown 
to  the  Skazkas. 


156  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

a  human  arm,  by  way  of  a  meal,  to  a  girl  who  visits  her. 
But  she  is  also  represented  in  one  of  the  stories  *  as  petri- 
fying her  victims.  This  trait  connects  her  with  Medusa, 
and  the  three  sister  Baba  Yagas  with  the  three  Gorgones. 
The  Russian  Gorgo's  method  of  petrifaction  is  singular. 
In  the  story  referred  to,  Ivan  De'vich  (Ivan  the  servant- 
maid's  son)  meets  a  Baba  Yaga,  who  plucks  one  of  her 
hairs,  gives  it  to  him,  and  says,  "  Tie  three  knots  and  then 
blow."  He  does  so,  and  both  he  and  his  horse  turn  into 
stone.  The  Baba  Yaga  places  them  in  her  mortar,  pounds 
them  to  bits,  and  buries  their  remains  under  a  stone.  A 
little  later  comes  Ivan  Devich's  comrade,  Prince  Ivan. 
Him  also  the  Yaga  attempts  to  destroy,  but  he  feigns 
ignorance,  and  persuades  her  to  show  him  how  to  tie 
knots  and  to  blow.  The  result  is  that  she  becomes  petri- 
fied herself.  Prince  Ivan  puts  her  in  her  own  mortar, 
and  proceeds  to  pound  her  therein,  until  she  tells  him 
where  the  fragments  of  his  comrade  are,  and  what  he 
must  do  to  restore  them  to  life. 

The  Baba  Yaga  usually  lives  by  herself,  but  sometimes 
she  appears  in  the  character  of  the  house-mother.  One 
of  the  Skazkas  f  relates  how  a  certain  old  couple,  who  had 
no  children,  were  advised  to  get  a  number  of  eggs  from 
the  village — one  from  each  house — and  to  place  them 
under  a  sitting  hen.  From  the  forty-one  eggs  thus  obtained 
and  treated  are  born  as  many  boys,  all  but  one  of  whom 
develop  into  strong  men,  but  the  forty-first  long  remains 
a  poor  weak  creature,  a  kind  of  "  Hop-o'-my-thumb." 
They  all  set  forth  to  seek  brides,  and  eventually  marry  the 
forty-one  daughters  of  a  Baba  Yaga.  On  the  wedding 
night  she  intends  to  kill  her  sons-in-law ;  but  they,  acting 
on  the  advice  of  him  who  had  been  the  weakling  of  their 

*  Erlenvein,  No.  3.  t  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  30. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  157 

party,  but  who  has  become  a  mighty  hero,  exchange  clothes 
with  their  brides  before  "  lying  down  to  sleep."  Accord- 
ingly the  Baba  Yaga's  "  trusty  servants  "  cut  off  the  heads 
of  her  daughters  instead  of  those  of  her  sons-in-law. 
Those  youths  arise,  stick  the  heads  of  their  brides  on  iron 
spikes  all  round  the  house,  and  gallop  away.  When  the 
Baba  Yaga  awakes  in  the  morning,  looks  out'of  the  window, 
and  sees  her  daughters'  heads  on  their  spikes,  she  flies  into 
a  passion,  calls  for  "her  burning  shield,"  sets  off  in  pursuit 
of  her  sons-in-law,  and  "  begins  burning  up  everything  on 
all  four  sides  with  her  shield."  A  magic,  bridge-creating 
kerchief,  however,  enables  the  fugitives  to  escape  from 
their  irritated  mother-in-law. 

In  one  story  *  the  heroine  is  ordered  to  swing  the 
cradle  in  which  reposes  a  Baba  Yaga's  infant  son,  whom 
she  is  ordered  to  address  in  terms  of  respect  when  she 
sings  nim  lullabies ;  in  others  she  is  told  to  wash  a  Baba 
Yaga's  many  children,  whose  appearance  is  usually  un- 
prepossessing. One  girl,  for  instance,  is  ordered  by  a 
Baba  Yaga  to  heat  the  bath,  but  the  fuel  given  her  for  the 
purpose  turns  out  to  be  dead  men's  bones.  Having  got 
over  this  difficulty,  thanks  to  the  advice  of  a  sparrow 
which  tells  her  where  to  look  for  wood,  she  is  sent  to  fetch 
water  in  a  sieve.  Again  the  sparrow  comes  to  her  rescue 
telling  her  to  line  the  sieve  with  clay.  Then  she  is  told 
to  wait  upon  the  Baba  Yaga's  children  in  the  bath-room. 
She  enters  it,  and  presently  in  come  "  worms,  frogs,  rats, 
and  all  sorts  of  insects."  These,  which  are  the  Baba 
Yaga's  children,  she  soaps  over  and  otherwise  treats  in  • 
the  approved  Russian-bath  style,  and  afterwards  she  does 
as  much  for  their  mother.  The  Baba  Yaga  is  highly 
pleased,  calls  for  a  "  samovar  "  (or  urn),  and  invites  her 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  97. 


158  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

young  bath-woman  to  drink  tea  with  her.  And  finally  she 
sends  her  home  with  a  blue  coffer,  which  turns  out  to  be 
full  of  money.  This  present  excites  the  cupidity  of  her 
stepmother,  who  sends  her  own  daughter  to  the  Baba 
Yaga's,  hoping  that  she  will  bring  back  a  similar  treasure. 
The  Baba  Yaga  gives  the  same  orders  as  before  to  the 
new-comer,  but  that  conceited  young  person  fails  to  carry 
them  out.  She  cannot  make  the  bones  burn,  nor  the  sieve 
hold  water,  but  when  the  sparrow  offers  its  advice  she 
only  boxes  its  ears.  And  when  the  "  rats,  frogs,  and  all 
manner  of  vermin,"  enter  the  bath-room,  "  she  crushed 
half  of  them  to  death,"  _  says  the  story;  "the  rest  ran 
юте,  and  complained  about  her  to  their  mother."  And 
so  the  Baba  Yaga,  when  she  dismisses  her,  gives  her  a 
red  coffer  instead  of  a  blue  one.  Out  of  it,  when  it  is 
opened,  issues  fire,  which  consumes  both  her  and  her 
mother.* 

Similar  to  this  story  in  many  of  its  features  as  well  as 
in  its  catastrophe  is  one  of  the  most  spirited  and  dramatic 
of  all  the  Skazkas,  that  of — 

Vasilissa  THE  FAIR.f 
In  a  certain  kingdom  there  lived  a  merchant.  Twelve  years 
did  he  live  as  a  married  man,  but  he  had  only  one  child,  Vasi- 
lissa the  Fair.  When  her  mother  died,  the  girl  was  eight  years 
old.  And  on  her  deathbed  the  merchant's  wife  called  her  little 
daughter  to  her,  took  out  from  under  the  bed-clothes  a  doll, 
gave  it  to  her,  and  said,  "Listen,  Vasilissa,  dear;  remember 
and  obey  these  last  words  of  mine.  I  am  going  to  die.  And 
now,  together-  with  my  parental  blessing,  I  bequeath  to  you  this 
doll.  Keep  it  always  by  you,  and  never  show  it  to  anybody ;  and 
whenever  any  misfortune  comes  upon  you,  give  the  doll  food, 
and  ask  its  a  vice.  When  it  has  fed,  it  will  tell  you  a  cure  foi 
your  troubles."      Then  the  mother  kissed  her  child  and  died. 

•  Khudyakof,  No.  14-     Erlenvein,  No.  y.  t  Afanasief,  iv.  No.  44. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  150 

After  his  wife's  death,  the  merchant  mourned  for  her  a  befit- 
ting time,  and  then  began  to  consider  about  marrying  again.  He 
was  a  man  of  means.  It  wasn't  a  question  with  him  of  girls  (with 
dowries)  ;  more  than  all  others,  a  certain  widow  took  his  fancy. 
She  was  middle-aged,  and  had  a  couple  of  daughters  of  her  own 
just  about  the  same  age  as  Vasilissa.  She  must  needs  be  both 
a  good  housekeeper  and  an  experienced  mother. 

Well,  the  merchant  married  the  widow,  but  he  had  deceived 
himself,  for  he  did  not  find  in  her  a  kind  mother  for  his  Vasilissa. 
Vasilissa  was  the  prettiest  girl*  in  all  the  village  ;  but  her  step- 
mother and  step-sisters  were  jealous  of  her  beauty,  and  torment- 
ed her  with  every  possible  sort  of  toil,  in  order  that  she  might 
grow  thin  from  over-work,  and  be  tanned  by  the  sun  and  the 
wind.  Her  life  was  made  a  burden  to  her !  Vasilissa  bore 
everything  with  resignation,  and  every  day  grew  plumper  and 
prettier,  while  the  step-mother  and  her  daughters  lost  flesh  and 
fell  off  in  appearance  from  the  effects  of  their  own  spite,  not- 
withstanding that  they  always  sat  with  folded  hands  like  fine 
ladies. 

But  how  did  that  come  about  ?  Why,  it  was  her  doll  that 
helped  Vasilissa.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  it,  however  could  the 
girl  have  got  through  all  her  work  ?  And  therefore  it  was  that 
Vasilissa  would  never  eat  all  her  share  of  a  meal,  but  always 
kept  the  most  delicate  morsel  for  her  doll ;  and  at  night,  when 
all  were  at  rest,  she  would  shut  herself  up  in  the  narrow  cham- 
ber f  in  which  she  slept,  and  feast  her  doll,  saying  %  the  while  : 

"  There,  dolly,  feed ;  help  me  in  my  need !  I  live  in  my 
father's  house,  but  never  know  what  pleasure  is  ;  my  evil  step- 
mother tries  to  drive  me  out  of  the  white  world  ;  teach  me  how 
to  keep  alive,  and  what  I  ought  to  do." 

Then  the  doll  would  eat,  and  afterwards  give  her  advice,  and 
comfort  her  in  her  sorrow,  and  next  day  it  would  do  all  Vasilissa's 

*  The  first  krasavitsa  or  beauty. 

!  Chulanchik.  The  chulan  is  a  kind  of  closet,  generally  used  as  a  storeroom  for 
provisions,  &c. 

X  Prigovarivaya,  the  word  generally  used  to  express  the  su  don  of  a  person  Л 
utters  a  charm  accompanied  by  a  gesture  of  the  hand  or  finger. 


160  R  USSIAN  FOLK- ТА LES. 

work  for  her.  She  had  only  to  take  her  ease  in  a  shady  place 
and  pluck  flowers,  and  yet  all  her  work  was  done  in  good  time  ; 
the  beds  were  weeded,  and  the  pails  were  filled,  and  the  cab- 
bages were  watered,  and  the  stove  was  heated.  Moreover,  the 
doll  showed  Vasilissa  herbs  which  prevented  her  from  getting 
sunburnt.     Happily  did  she  and  her  doll  live  together. 

Several  years  went  by.  Vasilissa  grew  up  and  became  old 
enough  to  be  married.*  All  the  marriageable  young  men  in  the 
town  sent  to  make  an  offer  to  Vasilissa  ;  at  her  stepmother's 
daughters  not  a  soul  would  so  much  as  look.  Her  stepmother 
grew  even  more  savage  than  before,  and  replied  to  every 
suitor — 

"  We  won't  let  the  younger  marry  before  her  elders." 

And  after  the  suitors  had  been  packed  off,  she  used  to  beat 
Vasilissa  by  way  of  wreaking  her  spite. 

Well,  it  happened  one  day  that  the  merchant  had  to  go 
away  from  home  on  business  for  a  long  time.  Thereupon  the 
stepmother  went  to  live  in  another  house  ;  and  near  that  house 
was  a  dense  forest,  and  in  a  clearing  in  that  forest  there  stood 
a  hut,f  and  in  the  hut  there  lived  a  Baba  Yaga.  She  never  let 
any  one  come  near  her  dwelling,  and  she  ate  up  people  like  so 
many  chickens. 

Having  moved  into  the  new  abode,  the  merchant's  wife  kept 
sending  her  hated  Vasilissa  into  the  forest  on  one  pretence  or 
another.  But  the  girl  always  got  home  safe  and  sound  ;  the 
doll  used  to  show  her  the  way,  and  never  let  her  go  near  the 
Baba  Yaga's  dwelling. 

The  autumn  season  arrived.  One  evening  the  stepmother 
gave  out  their  work  to  the  three  girls  ;  one  she  set  to  lace-mak- 
ing, another  to  knitting  socks,  and  the  third,  Vasilissa,  to  weav- 
ing ;  and  each  of  them  had  her  allotted  amount  to  do.  By-and- 
bye  she  put  out  the  lights  in  the  house,  leaving  only  one  candle 
alight  where  the  girls  were  working,  and  then  she  went  to  bed. 
The   girls  worked  and  worked.      Presently  the  candle  wanted 

*  Became  ;.  nevyesta^  a  word  meaning  "  a  marriageable  maiden,"  or  a  be'rothed 
girl)"  or  '■  a  bride." 

t  Izbushka,  a  little  ijba  or  cottage. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  1G1 

snuffing :  one  of  the  step-daughters  took  the  snuffers,  as  if  she 
were  going  to  clear  the  wick,  but  instead  of  doing  so,  in  obedi- 
ence to  her  mother's  orders,  she  snuffed  the  candle  out,  pretend- 
ing to  do  so  by  accident. 

"  What  shall  we  do  now  ?  "  said  the  girls.  "There  isn't  a 
spark  of  fire  in  the  house,  and  our  tasks  are  not  yet  done.  We 
must  go  to  the  Baba  Yaga's  for  a  light !  " 

"  My  pins  give  me  light  enough,"  said  the  one  who  was  mak- 
ing lace.     "  I  shan't  go.' 

"  And  I  shan't  go,  either,"  said  the  one  who  was  knitting 
socks.     "  My  knitting-needles  give  me  light  enough." 

"  Vasilissa,  you  must  go  for  the  light,"  they  both  cried  out 
together  ;  "  be  off  to  the  Baba  Yaga's  ! ' ' 

And  they  pushed  Vasilissa  out  of  the  room. 

Vasilissa  went  into  her  little  closet,  set  before  the  doll  a  sup- 
per which  she  had  provided  beforehand,  and  said  : 

"Now,  dolly,  feed,  and  listen  to  my  need!  I'm  sent  to  the 
Baba  Yaga's  for  a  light.     The  Baba  Yaga  will  eat  me  ! " 

The  doll  fed,  and  its  eyes  began  to  glow  just  like  a  couple  of 
candles. 

"Never  fear,  Vasilissa  dear!  "  it  said.  "Go  where  you're 
sent.  Only  take  care  to  keep  me  always  by  you.  As  long  as  I'm 
with  you,  no  harm  will  come  to  you  at  the  Baba  Yaga's. 

So  Vasilissa  got  ready,  put  her  doll  in  her  pocket,  crossed 
herself,  and  went  out  into  the  thick  forest. 

As  she  walks  she  trembles.  Suddenly  a  horseman  gallops 
by.  He  is  white,  and  he  is  dressed  in  white,  under  him  is  a  white 
horse,  and  the  trappings  of  the  horse  are  white — and  the  day 
begins  to  break. 

She  goes  a  little  further,  and  a  second  rider  gallops  by.  He 
is  red,  dressed  in  red,  and  sitting  on  a  red  horse — and  the  sun 
rises. 

Vasilissa  went  on  walking  all  night  and  all  next  day.  It  was 
only  towards  the  evening  that  she  reached  the  clearing  on  which 
stood  the  dwelling  of  the  Baba  Yaga.  The  fence  around  it  was 
made  of  dead  men's  bones  ;  on  the  top  of  the  fence  were  stuck 
human  skulls  with  eyes  in  them ;  instead  of  uprights  at  the  gates 

и 


162  R  USSIA  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

were  men's  legs ;  instead  of  bolts  were  arms ;  instead  of  a  lock 
was  a  mouth  with  sharp  teeth. 

Vasilissa  was  frightened  out  of  her  wits,  and  stood  still  as  if 
rooted  to  the  ground. 

Suddenly  there  rode  past  another  horseman.  He  was  black, 
dressed  all  in  black,  and  on  a  black  horse.  He  galloped  up  to 
the  Baba  Yaga's  gate  and  disappeared,  just  as  if  he  had  sunk 
through  the  ground — and  night  fell.  But  the  darkness  did  not 
last  long.  The  eyes  of  all  the  skulls  on  the  fence  began  to  shine 
and  the  whole  clearing  became  as  bright  as  if  it  had  been  mid- 
day. Vasilissa  shuddered  with  fear,  but  stopped  where  she  was, 
not  knowing  which  way  to  run. 

Soon  there  was  heard  in  the  forest  a  terrible  roar.  The  trees 
cracked,  the  dry  leaves  rustled ;  out  of  the  forest  came  the  Baba 
Yaga,  riding  in  a  mortar,  urging  it  on  with  a  pestle,  sweeping 
away  her  traces  with  a  broom.  Up  she  drove  to  the  gate,  stopped 
short,  and,  snuffing  the  air  around  her,  cried  : — 

"  Faugh  !  Faugh  !  I  smell  Russian  flesh !  *     Who's  there  ?  " 

Vasilissa  went  up  to  the  hag  in  a  terrible  fright,  bowed  low 
before  her,  and  said  : — 

"  It's  me,  granny.     My  stepsisters  have  sent  me  to  you  for  a 

"  Very  good,"  said  the  Baba  Yaga ;  "  I  know  them.  If  you'll 
stop  awhile  with  me  first,  and  do  some  work  for  me,  I'll  give  you 
a  light.     But  if  you  won't,  I'll  eat  you  !  " 

Then  she  turned  to  the  gates,  and  cried : — 

"  Ho,  thou  firm  fence  of  mine,  be  thou  divided  !  And  ye,  wide 
gates  of  mine,  do  ye  fly  open  ! " 

The  gates  opened,  and  the  Baba  Yaga  drove  in,  whistling  as 
she  went,  and  after  her  followed  Vasilissa;  and  then  everything 
shut  to  again.  When  they  entered  the  sitting-room,  the  Baba 
Yaga  stretched  herself  out  at  full  length,  and  said  to  Vasilissa : 

"  Fetch  out  what  there  is  in  the  oven ;  I'm  hungry." 

Vasilissa  lighted  a  splinter  f  at  one  of  the  skulls  which  were 

*  "  Phu,  Phu !  there  is  a  Russian  smell !"   the  equivalent  of  our  own  "  Fee,  fav^ 
font,  I  smell  the  blood  of  an  Englishman  I" 

t  LucAina,  a  deal  splinter  used  instead  of  a  candle. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  163 

on  the  fence,  and  began  fetching  meat  from  the  oven  and  setting 
it  before  the  Baba  Yaga ;  and  meat  enough  had  been  provided 
for  a  dozen  people.  Then  she  fetched  from  the  cellar  kvass, 
mead,  beer,  and  wine.  The  hag  ate  up  everything,  drank  up 
everything.  All  she  left  for  Vasilissa  was  a  few  scraps — a  crust 
of  bread  and  a  morsel  of  sucking-pig.  Then  the  Baba  Yaga  lay 
down  to  sleep,  saying: — 

"  When  I  go  out  to-morrow  morning,  mind  you  cleanse  the 
courtyard,  sweep  the  room,  cook  the  dinner,  and  get  the  linen 
ready.  Then  go  to  the  corn-bin,  take  out  four  quarters  of  wheat, 
and  clear  it  of  other  seed.*  And  mind  you  have  it  all  done — if 
you  don't,  I  shall  eat  you  !  " 

After  giving  these  orders  the  Baba  Yaga  began  to  snore.  But 
Vasilissa  set  the  remnants  of  the  hag's  supper  before  her  doll, 
burst  into  tears,  and  said : — ■ 

"  Now,  dolly,  feed,  listen  to  my  need  !  The  Baba  Yaga  has 
set  me  a  heavy  task,  and  threatens  to  eat  me  if  I  don't  do  it  all. 
Do  help  me  !  " 

The  doll  replied  : 

"  Never  fear,  Vasilissa  the  Fair  !  Sup,  say  your  prayers,  and 
go  to  bed.     The  morning  is  wiser  than  the  evening !  " 

Vasilissa  awoke  тегу  early,  but  the  Baba  Yaga  was  already  up. 
She  looked  out  of  window.  The  light  in  the  skull's  eyes  was 
going  out.  All  of  a  sudden  there  appeared  the  white  horseman, 
and  all  was  light.  The  Baba  Yaga  went  out  into  the  courtyard  and 
whistled — before  her  appeared  a  mortar  with  a  pestle  and  a  broom. 
The  red  horseman  appeared — the  sun  rose.  The  Baba  Yaga 
seated  herself  in  the  mortar,  and  drove  out  of  the  courtyard, 
shooting  herself  along  with  the  pestle,  sweeping  away  her  traces 
with  the  broom. 

Vasilissa  was  left  alone,  so  she  examined  the  Baba  Yaga's 
house,  wondered  at  the  abundance  there  was  in  everything,  and 
remained  lost  in  thought  as  to  which  work  she  ought  to  take  to 
first.  She  looked  up  ;  all  her  work  was  done  already.  The  dol] 
had  cleared  the  wheat  to  the  very  last  grain. 

"  Ah,  my  preserver !  "  cried  Vasilissa,  "  you've  saved  me 
from  danger ! " 

*  Cforftushka,  a  sort  of  wild  pea. 


164  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  All  you've  got  to  do  now  is  to  cook  the  dinner,"  answered 
the  doll,  slipping  into  Vasilissa's  pocket.  "  Cook  away,  in  God's 
name,  and  then  take  some  rest  for  your  health's  sake  ! " 

Towards  evening  Vasilissa  got  the  table  ready,  and  awaited 
the  Baba  Yaga.  It  began  to  grow  dusky;  the  black  rider  ap- 
peared for  a  moment  at  the  gate,  and  all  grew  dark.  Only  the 
eyes  of  the  skulls  sent  forth  their  light.  The  trees  began  to 
crack,  the  leaves  began  to  rustle,  up  drove  the  Baba  Yaga. 
Vasilissa  went  out  to  meet  her. 

"  Is  everything  done  ?  "  asks  the  Yaga. 

"  Please  to  look  for  yourself,  granny  !  "  says  Vasilissa. 

The  Baba  Yaga  examined  everything,  was  vexed  that  there 
was  nothing  to  be  angry  about,  and  said  : 

"  Well,  well !  very  good  ! " 

Afterwards  she  cried  : 

"  My  trusty  servants,  zealous  friends,  grind  this  my  wheat ! " 

There  appeared  three  pairs  of  hands,  which  gathered  up  the 
wheat,  and  carried  it  out  of  sight.  The  Baba  Yaga  supped,  went 
to  bed,  and  again  gave  her  orders  to  Vasilissa : 

"  Do  just  the  same  to-morrow  as  to-day ;  only  besides  that  take 
out  of  the  bin  the  poppy  seed  that  is  there,  and  clean  the  earth 
off  it  grain  by  grain.  Some  one  or  other,  you  see,  has  mixed  a 
lot  of  earth  with  it  out  of  spite."  Having  said  this,  the  hag  turned 
to  the  wall  and  began  to  snore,  and  Vasilissa  took  to  feeding  her 
doll.  The  doll  fed,  and  then  said  to  her  what  it  had  said  the 
day  before : 

"Pray  to  God,  and  go  to  sleep.  The  morning  is  wiser  than  the 
evening.     All  shall  be  done,  Vasilissa  clear !  " 

The  next  morning  the  Baba  Yaga  again  drove  out  of  the  court, 
yard  in  her  mortar,  and  Vasilissa  and  her  doll  immediately  did 
all  the  work.  The  hag  returned,  looked  at  everything,  and  cried, 
"  My  trusty  servants,  zealous  friends,  press  forth  oil  from  the 
poppy  seed !  " 

Three  pairs  of  hands  appeared,  gathered  up  the  poppy  seed, 
and  bore  it  out  of  sight.  The  Baba  Yaga  sat  down  to  dinner. 
She  ate,  but  Vasilissa  stood  silently  by. 

"  Why  don't  you  speak  to  me  ? "  said  the  Baba  Yaga ;  "  there 
you  stand  like  a  dumb  creature  1 " 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  165 

"  I  didn't  dare,"  answered  Vasilissa ;  "  but  if  you  give  me 
leave,  I  should  like  to  ask  you  about  something." 

"  Ask  away ;  only  it  isn't  every  question  that  brings  good. 
'  Get  much  to  know,  and  old  soon  you'll  grow.'  " 

"  I  only  want  to  ask  you,  granny,  about  something  I  saw.  As 
I  was  coming  here,  I  was  passed  by  one  riding  on  a  white  horse ; 
he  was  white  himself,  and  dressed  in  white.     Who  was  he  ?  " 

"  That  was  my  bright  Day  !  "  answered  the  Baba  Yaga. 

"  Afterwards  there  passed  me  another  rider,  on  a  red  horse  ; 
red  himself,  and  all  in  red  clothes.     Who  was  he  ?  " 

"  That  was  my  red  Sun  !  "  *  answered  the  Baba  Yaga. 

"  And  who  may  be  the  black  rider,  granny,  who  passed  by 
me  just  at  your  gate  ?  " 

"  That  was  my  dark  Night ;  they  are  all  trusty  servants  of 
mine." 

Vasilissa  thought  of  the  three  pairs  of  hands,  but  held  her 
peace. 

"  Why  don't  you  go  on  asking  ?  "  said  the  Baba  Yaga. 

"  That's  enough  for  me,  granny.  You  said  yourself,  ?  '  Get 
too  much  to  know,  old  you'll  grow  ! ' " 

"It's  just  as  well,"  said  the  Baba  Yaga,  "that  you've  only 
asked  about  what  you  saw  out  of  doors,  not  indoors  !  In  my  house 
I  hate  having  dirt  carried  out  of  doors  ;  f  and  as  to  over-inquisi- 
tive people — well,  I  eat  them.  Now  I'll  ask  you  something. 
How  is  it  you  manage  to  do  the  work  I  set  you  to  do  ?  " 

"  My  mother's  blessing  assists  me,"  replied  Vasilissa. 

"  Eh  !  eh  !  what's  that  ?  Get  along  out  of  my  house,  you 
bless'd  daughter.    I  don't  want  bless'd  people." 

She  dragged  Vasilissa  out  of  the  room,  pushed  her  outside 
the  gates,  took  one  of  the  skulls  with  blazing  eyes  from  the 
fence,  stuck  it  on  a  stick,  gave  it  to  her  and  said  : 

"  Lay  hold  of  that.  It's  a  light  you  can  take  to  your  step- 
sisters.    That's  what  they  sent  you  here  for,  I  believe." 

Home  went  Vasilissa  at  a  run,  lit  by  the  skull,  which  went  out 

*  KrasTtoe  solnuischko,  red  (or  fair)  dear-sun. 

t  Equivalent  to  saying  "  she  liked  to  wash  her  dirty  linen  at  home." 


166  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

only  at  the  approach  of  the  dawn ;  and  at  last,  on  the  evening 
of  the  second  day,  she  reached  home.  When  she  came  to  the 
gate,  she  was  going  to  throw  away  the  skull. 

"  Surely,"  thinks  she,  "  they  can't  be  still  in  want  of  a  light 
at  home."  But  suddenly  a  hollow  voice  issued  from  the  skull, 
saying : 

"  Throw  me  not  away.    Carry  me  to  your  stepmother  !  " 

She  looked  at  her  step-mother's  house,  and  not  seeing  a  light 
in  a  single  window,  she  determined  to  take  the  skull  in  there 
with  her.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  was  cordially  received 
by  her  step-mother  and  step-sisters,  who  told  her  that  from  the 
moment  she  went  away  they  hadn't  had  a  spark  of  fire  in  the 
house.  They  couldn't  strike  a  light  themselves  anyhow,  and 
whenever  they  brought  one  in  from  a  neighbor's,  it  went  out  as 
soon  as  it  came  into  the  room. 

"  Perhaps  your  light  will  keep  in  !  "  said  the  stepmother.  So 
they  carried  the  skull  into  the  sitting-room.  But  the  eyes  of  the 
skull  so  glared  at  the  stepmother  and  her  daughters — shot  forth 
such  flames  !  They  would  fain  have  hidden  themselves,  but  run 
where  they  would,  everywhere  did  the  eyes  follow  after  them. 
By  the  morning  they  were  utterly  burnt  to  cinders.  Only  Vasil- 
issa  was  none  the  worse.* 

["Next  morning  Vasilissa  "buried  the  skull,"  locked  up  the  house  and  took  up 
her  quarters  in  a  neighboring  town.  After  a  time  she  began  to  work.  Her  doll  made 
her  a  glorious  loom,  and  by  the  end  of  the  winter  she  had  weaved  a  quantity  of  linen 
so  fine  that  it  might  be  passed  like  thread  through  the  eye  of  a  needle.  In  the  spring, 
after  it  had  been  bleached,  Vasilissa  made  a  present  of  it  to  the  old  woman  with  whom 
she  lodged.  The  crone  presented  it  to  the  king,  who  ordered  it  to  be  made  into  shirts. 
But  no  seamstress  could  be  found  to  make  them  up,  until  the  linen  was  entrusted  to 
Vasilissa.  When  a  dozen  shirts  were  ready,  Vasilissa  sent  them  to  the  king,  and  as 
soon  as  her  carrier  had  started,  "  she  washed  herself,  and  combed  her  hair,  and  dressed 
herself,  and  sat  down  at  the  window."  Before  long  there  arrived  a  messenger  de- 
manding her  instant  appearance  at  court.  And  "  when  she  appeared  before  the  rcyai 
eyes,"  the  king  fell  desperately  in  love  with  her. 

"  Nc,    my  beauty  !  "  said  he,  "  never  will  I  part  with   thee  ;  thou  shalt  be  my 

*  I  break  off  the  narrative  at  this  point,  because  what  follows  is  inferior  in  dra- 
matic interest,  and  lam  afraid  of  diminishing  the  reader's  admiration  for  one  of  the 
best  folk-tales  I  know.  But  I  give  an  epitome  of  the  remainder  within  brackets  and 
\d  small  type. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  167 

«rife.  '  So  he  married  her  ;  and  by-and-by  her  father  returned,  and  took  up  his  abode 
with  her.  "  And  Vasilissa  took  the  old  woman  into  her  service,  and  as  for  the  doll — 
to  the  end  of  her  life  she  always  carried  it  in  her  pocket."] 

The  puppet  which  plays  so  important  a  part  in  this 
story  is  worthy  of  a  special  examination.  It  is  called  in 
the  original  a  Kukla  (  dim.  Kukolkd),  a  word  designating 
any  sort  of  puppet  or  other  figure  representing  either  man  or 
beast.  In  a  Little-Russian  variant  *  of  one  of  those  numer- 
ous stones,  current  in  all  lands,  which  commence  with  the 
escape  of  the  heroine  from  an  incestuous  union,  a  priest  in- 
sists on  marrying  his  daughter.  She  goes  to  her  mother's 
grave  and  weeps  there.  Her  dead  mother  "  comes  out  from 
her  grave,"  and  tells  her  what  to  do.  The  girl  obtains  from 
her  father  a  rough  dress  of  pig's  skin,  and  two  sets  of  gor- 
geous apparel  ;  the  former  she  herself  assumes,  in  the  latter 
she  dresses  up  three  Kuklui,  which  in  this  instance  were 
probably  mere  blocks  of  wood.  Then  she  takes  her  place 
in  the  midst  of  the  dressed-up  forms,  which  cry,  one  after 
the  other,  "  Open,  О  moist  earth,  that  the  fair  maiden 
may  enter  within  thee  !  "  The  earth  opens,  and  all  four 
sink  into  it. 

This  introduction  is  almost  identical  with  that  prefixed 
to  the  German  story  of  "Allerleirauh,"f  except  in  so  far  as 
the  puppets  are  concerned. 

Sometimes  it  is  a  brother,  instead  of  a  father,  from 
whom  the  heroine  is  forced  to  flee.     Thus  in  the    story    of 

*  From  the  Poltava  government.     Afanasief,  vi.  No.  28  b. 

t  Grimm,  No.  65.  The  Waliachian  and  Lithuanian  forms  resemble  the  German 
(Schott,  No.  3.  Schleicher,  No.  7).  In  all  of  them,  the  heroine  is  a  princess,  who 
runs  away  from  an  unnatural  father.  In  one  of  the  Modern  Greek  versions  (Hihn, 
No.  27),  she  sinks  into  the  earth.  For  references  to  seven  other  forms  of  the  story, 
see  Grimm,  K.M.,  iii.  p.  116.  In  one  Russian  variant  (Khudyakof,  No-  54),  she  hides 
in  a  secret  drawer,  constructed  for  the  purpose  in  a  bedstead  ;  in  another  (Afanasief, 
vi.  No.  2S  a),  her  father,  not  recognising  her  in  the  pig-skin  dress,  spits  at  her,  and 
turns  her  out  of  the  house.  In  a  third,  which  is  of  a  very  repulsive  character  (ibid.  vii. 
No.  29),  the  father  kills  his  daughter. 


IG8  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Kniaz  Danila  Govorila*  Prince  Daniel  the  Talker  is  bent 
upon  marrying  his  sister,  pleading  the  excuse  so  often  given 
in  stories  on  this  theme,  namely,  that  she  is  the  only  maiden 
whose  finger  will  fit  the  magic  ring  which  is  to  indicate  to 
him  his  destined  wife.  While  she  is  weeping  ''  like  a  river," 
some  old  women  of  the  mendicant-pilgrim  class  come  to  her 
rescue,  telling  her  to  make  four  Kukolki,  or  small  puppets, 
and  to  place  one  of  them  in  each  corner  of  her  room.  She 
does  as  they  tell  her.  The  wedding  day  arrives,  the  mar- 
riage service  is  performed  in  the  church,  and  then  the  bride 
hastens  back  to  the  room.  When  she  is  called  for — says 
the  story — the  puppets  in  the  four  corners  begin  to  coo.+ 

"  Kuku  !  Prince  Danila  ! 

"  Kuku  !  Govorila. 

"  Kuku  !  He  wants  to  marry, 

"  Kuku  !  His  own  sister. 

"  Kuku  !  Split  open,  О  Earth  ! 

"  Kuku  !   Sister,  disappear  !  " 

The  earth  opens,  and  the  girl  slowly  sinks  into  it. 
Twice  again  the  puppets  sing  their  song,  and  at  the  end  of 
its  third  performance,  the  earth  closes  over  the  head  of  the 
rescued  bride.  Presently  in  rushes  the  irritated  bridegroom. 
"  No  bride  is  to  be  seen  ;  only  in  the  corners  sit  the  pup- 
pets singing  away  to  themselves."  He  flies  into  a  passion, 
seizes  a  hatchet,  chops  off  their  heads,  and  flings  them 
into  the  fire.$ 

*  Afanasief,  vi.  No.  18. 

tThe  Russian  word  is  zaknkovali,  i.e.,  "  They  began  to  cuckoo."  The  resem- 
blance between  the  v  ord  kukla,  a  puppet,  and  the  name  and  cry  of  the  cuckoo  (Kt+ 
kushkti)  may  be  merely  accidental,  but  that  bird  has  a  marked  mythological  character. 
See  the  account  of  the  rite  called  "  the  Christening  of  the  Cuckoos,"  in  "  Songs  of  the 
Russian  people,"  p-  215 

t  Very  like  these  puppets  are  the  images  which  reply  for  the  sleeping  prince  in  the 
opening  scene  of  '  De  beideri  Kiinigeskinner'  (Grimm,  No.  113).  A  doll  plays  an  im- 
portant part  in  one  of  Straparola's  stories  (Night  v.  Fable  2).  Professor  de  Gubernatis 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  169 

In  another  version  of  the  same  story  *  a  son  is  ordered 
by  his  parents  to  marry  his  sister  after  their  death.  They 
die,  and  he  tells  her  to  get  ready  to  be  married.  But  she 
has  prepared  three  puppets,  and  when  she  goes  into  her 
room  to  dress  for  the  wedding,  she  says  to  them  : 

"  О  Kukolki,  (cry)  Kuku  !  " 

The  first  asks,  "Why?" 

The  second  replies,  "  Because  the  brother  his  sister 
takes." 

The  third  says,  "  Split  open,  О  Earth  !  disappear,  О  sis- 
ter ! " 

All  this  is  said  three  times,  and  then  the  earth  opens, 
and  the  girl  sinks  "  into  that  world." 

In  two  other  Russian  versions  of  the  same  story,  the 
sister  escapes  by  natural  means.  In  the  first  f  she  runs 
away  and  hides  in  the  hollow  of  an  oak.  In  the  second  t 
she  persuades  a  fisherman  to  convey  her  across  a  sea  or 
lake.  In  a  Polish  version  §  the  sister  obtains  a  magic  car, 
which  sinks  underground  with  her,  while  the  spot  on  which 
she  has  spat  replies  to  every  summons  which  is  addressed 
to  her.  || 

Before  taking  leave  of  the  Baba  Yaga,  we  may  glance 
at  a  malevolent  monster,  who  seems  to  be  her  male  counter- 
part.    He  appears,  however,  to  be  known  in  South  Russia 

identifies  the  Russian  puppet  with  '  the  moon,  the  Vedic  Raka,  very  small,  but  very 
intelligent,  enclosed  in  the  wooden  dress,  in  the  forest  of  night,'  Zoological  Mythol- 
ogy," i.  207-8. 

*  Afanasief,  ii.  No.  31. 

t  Khudyakof,  No.  55.  t  Ibid.,  No.  83. 

§  Wojcicki's  "  Polmsche  Volkssagen,"  &c.  Lewestam's  translation,  iii.  No.  8. 

||  The  germ  of  all  these  repulsive  stories  about  incestuous  unions,  proposed  but  not 
carried  out,  was  probably  a  nature  myth  akin  to  that  alluded  to  in  the  passage  of  the 
Rigveda  containing  the  dialogue  between  Yama  and  Yami — "  where  she  (the  night 
implores  her  brother  (the  day)  to  make  her  his  wife,  and  where  he  declines  her  offer 
because,  as  he  says,  '  they  have  called  it  sin  that  a  brother  should  marry  his  sister." 
Max  Muller,  "Lectures,"  sixth  edition,  ii.  557. 


170  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

only.  Here  is  an  outline  of  the  contents  of  the  solitary 
story  in  which  he  is  mentioned.  There  were  two  old  folks 
with  whom  lived  two  orphan  grandchildren,  charming  little 
girls.  One  day  the  youngest  child  was  sent  to  drive  the 
sparrows  away  from  her  grandfather's  pease.  While  she 
was  thus  engaged  the  forest  began  to  roar,  and  out  from  it 
came  Verlioka,  "  of  vast  stature,  one-eyed,  crook-nosed, 
bristly-headed,  with  tangled  beard  and  moustaches  halt  an 
ell  long,  and  with  a  wooden  boot  on  his  one  foot,  support- 
ing himself  on  a  crutch,  and  giving  vent  to  a  terrible 
laughter."  And  Verlioka  caught  sight  of  the  little  girl  and 
immediately  killed  her  with  his  crutch.  And  afterwards  he 
killed  her  sister  also,  and  then  the  old  grandmother.  The 
grandfather,  however,  managed  to  escape  with  his  life,  and 
afterwards,  with  the  help  of  a  drake  and  other  aiders,  he 
wreaked  his  vengeance  on  the  murderous  Verlioka.* 

We  will  now  turn  to  another  female  embodiment  of  evil, 
frequently  mentioned  in  the  Skazkas — the  Witch. f  She  so 
closely  resembles  the  Baba  Yaga  both  in  disposition  and 
in  behavior,  that  most  of  the  remarks  which  have  been 
made  about  that  wild  being  apply  to  her  also.  In  many 
cases,  indeed,  we  find  that  one  version  of  a  story  will  allot 
to  a  Baba  Yaga  the  part  which  in  another  version  is  played 
by  a  Witch.  The  name  which  she  bears — that  of  VyecTtna 
— is  a  misnomer  •  it  properly  belongs  either  to  the  "  wise 
woman,"  or  prophetess,  of  old  times,  or  to  her  modern  repre- 
sentative, the  woman  to  whom  Russian  superstition  attri- 
butes the  faculties  and  functions  ascribed  in  olden  days  by 


*  Afansief,  vii.  No.  18. 

t  Her  name  VyeiT ma  comes  from  a  Slavonic  not  vtd,  answering  to  the  Sanscrit 
t  ;.d — from  which  springs  an  immense  family  of  words  having  reference  to  knowledge. 
Vycif  ma  and  ivitch  are  in  fact  cousins  who,  though  very  distantly  related,  closely  re- 
semble each  other  both  in  appearance  and  in  character. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  171 

most  of  our  j  arisprudents,  in  more  recent  times  by  a  few  of 
our  rustics,  to  our  own  witch.  The  supernatural  being  who, 
in  folk-tales,  sways  the  elements  and  preys  upon  mankind, 
is  most  inadequately  designated  by  such  names  as  Vyed'ma, 
Hexe,  or  Witch,  suggestive  as  those  now  homely  terms  are 
of  merely  human,  though  diabolically  intensified  malevo- 
lence. Far  more  in  keeping  with  the  vastness  of  her  powers, 
and  the  vagueness  of  her  outline,  are  the. titles  of  Baba 
Yaga,  Lamia,  Striga,  Troll-Wife,  Ogress,  or  Dragoness, 
under  which  she  figures  in  various  lands.  And  therefore  it 
is  in  her  capacity  of  Baba  Yaga,  rather  than  in  that  of 
УуесГта,  that  we  desire  to  study  the  behavior  of  the 
Russian  equivalent  for  the  terrible  female  form  which 
figures  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  poem  as  the  Mother  of  Grendel. 
From  among  the  numerous  stories  relating  to  the 
Vyecftna  we  may  select  the  following,  which  bears  her 
name. 

The  Witc-h.* 
There   once  lived   an   old   couple   who   had   one   son  called 
Ivashko  ;  \  no  one  can  tell  how  fond  they  were  of  him  ! 

Well,  one  day,  Ivashko  said  to  his  father  and  mother: 

"  I'll  go  out  fishing  if  you'll  let  me." 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about !  you're  still  very  small ;  sup- 
pose you  get  drowned,  what  good  will  there  be  in  that  ?  " 

"  No,  no,  1  shan't  get  drowned.     I'll  catch  you   some  fish; 
do  let  me  go  !  " 

So  his  mother  put  a  white  shirt  on  him,  tied  a  red  girdle  round 
him,  and  let  him  go.     Out  in  a  boat  he  sat  and  said  : 

Canoe,  canoe,  float  a  little  farther, 
Canoe,  canoe,  float  a  little  farther  1 

Then  the  canoe  floated  on  farther  and  farther,  and  Ivashko 

*  Afanasief,  i.  No.  4  a.     From  the  Voronej  Government. 

t  Ivashko  and  [vashechko,  are  caressing  diminutives  of  Ivan. 


172  R USSTAN  FOLK- 7 "ALES. 

began  to  fish.     When  some  little  time  had   passed  by,  the  old 
woman  hobbled  down  to  the  river  side  and  called  to  her  son  : 

Ivashechko,  Ivaschechko,  my  boy, 
Float  up,  float  up  unto  the  waterside  ; 
I  bring  thee  food  and  drink. 

And  Ivashko  said  : 

Canoe,  canoe,  float  to  the  waterside  ; 
That  is  my  mother  calling  me. 

The  boat  floated  to  the  shore  :  the  woman  took  the  fish,  gave 
her  boy  food  and  drink,  changed  his  shirt  for  him  and  his  girdle, 
and  sent  him  back  to  his  fishing.  Again  he  sat  in  his  boat  and 
said  : 

Canoe,  canoe,  float  a  little  farther, 
Canoe,  canoe,  float  a  little  farther. 

Then  the  canoe  floated  on  farther  and  farther,  and  Ivashko 
began  to  fish.  After  a  little  time  had  passed  by,  the  old  man 
also  hobbled  down  to  the  bank  and  called  to  his  son  : 

Ivashechko,  Ivashechko,  my  boy, 
Float  up,  float  up,  unto  the  waterside  ; 
I  bring  thee  food  and  drink. 

And  Ivashko  replied  : 

Canoe,  canoe,  float  to  the  waterside  ; 
That  is  my  father  calling  me. 

The  canoe  floated  to  the  shore.  The  old  man  took  the  fish, 
gave  his  boy  food  and  drink,  changed  his  shirt  for  him  and  his 
girdle,  and  sent  him  back  to  his  fishing. 

Now  a  certain  witch*  had  heard  what  Ivashko's  parents  had 
cried  aloud  to  him,  and  she  longed  to  get  hold  of  the  boy.  So 
she  went  clown  to  the  bank  and  cried  with  a  hoarse  voice  ; 

Ivashechko,  Ivashechko,  my  boy, 
Float  up,  float  up,  unto  the  waterside  ; 
I  bring  thee  food  and  drink. 

Ivashko  perceived  that  the  voice  was  not  his  mother's,  but 
was  that  of  a  witch,  and  he  sang  : 

Ca.ioe,  canoe,  float  a  little  farther, 
Canoe,  canoe,  float  a  little  farther  ; 
That  is  not  my  mother,  but  a  witch  who  calls  me. 

•"Some  storytellers,"  says  Afanasief,  "substitute  the  word  snake  (im»)  In 
the  Shazka  for  that  of  witch  (vyeit'ma)." 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  173 

The  witch  saw  that  she  must  call  Ivashko  with  just  such  a 
I'oice  as  his  mother  had. 

So  she  hastened  to  a  smith  and  said  to  him : 
"  Smith,  smith !  make   me  just  such  a  thin  little  voice  as 
Ivashko's  mother  has  :  if  you  don't,  I'll  eat  you."    So  the  smith 
forged  her  a  little  voice  just  like  Ivashko's  mother's.     Then  the 
witch  went  down  by  night  to  the  shore  and  sang : 

Ivashechko,  Ivashechko,  my  boy, 
Float  up,  float  up,  unto  the  waterside  ; 
I  bring  thee  food  and  drink. 

Ivashko  came,  and  she  took  the  fish,  and  seized  the  boy  and 
carried  him  home  with  her.  When  she  arrived  she  said  to  her 
daughter  Alenka,*  "  Heat  the  stove  as  hot  as  you  can,  and  bake 
Ivashko  well,  while  I  go  and  collect  my  friends  for  the  feast." 
So  Alenka  heated  the  stove  hot,  ever  so  hot,  and  said  to  Ivashko, 

"  Come  here  and  sit  on  this  shovel  ! " 

"  I'm  still  very  young  and  foolish,"  answered  Ivashko  :  "  I 
haven't  yet  quite  got  my  wits  about  me.  Please  teach  me  how 
one  ought  to  sit  on  a  shovel." 

"Very  good,"  said  Alenka;  "it  won't  take  long  to  teach 
you." 

But  the  moment  she  sat  down  on  the  shovel,  Ivashko  in- 
stantly pitched  her  into  the  oven,  slammed  to  the  iron  plate  in 
front  of  it,  ran  out  of  the  hut,  shut  the  door,  and  hurriedly 
climbed  up  ever  so  high  an  oak-tree  [which  stood  close  by]. 

Presently  the  witch  arrived  with  her  guests  and  knocked  at 
the  door  of  the  hut.     But  nobody  opened  it  for  her. 

"  Ah  !  that  cursed  Alenka  !  "  she  cried.  "  No  doubt  she's 
gone  off  somewhere  to  amuse  herself."  Then  she  slipped  in 
through  the  window,  opened  the  door,  and  let  in  her  guests. 
They  all  sat  down  to  table,  and  the  witch  opened  the  oven,  took 
out  Alenka's  baked  body,  and  served  it  up.  They  all  ate  their 
fill  and  drank  their  fill,  and  then  they  went  out  into  the  court- 
yard and  began  rolling  about  on  the  grass. 

"  I  turn  about,  I  roll  about,  having  fed  on  Ivashko's  flesh   " 

*  Diminutive  of  Elena. 


174  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

cried  the  witch.  "  I  turn  about,  I  roll  about,  having  fed  on 
Ivashko's  flesh." 

But  Ivashko  called  out  to  her  from  the  top  of  the  oak : 

"  Turn  about,  roll  about,  having  fed  on  Alenka's  flesh  !  " 

"  Did  I  hear  something  ?  "  said  the  witch.  "  No  it  was  only 
the  noise  of  the  leaves."     Again  the  witch  began  : 

"  I  turn  about,  I  roll  about,  having  fed  on  Ivashko's  flesh ! " 

And  Ivashko  repeated : 

"  Turn  about,  roll  about,  having  fed  on  Alenka's  flesh  !  " 

Then  the  witch  looked  up  and  saw  Ivashko,  and  immediately 
rushed  at  the  oak  on  which  Ivashko  was  seated,  and  began  to 
gnaw  away  at  it.  And  she  gnawed,  and  gnawed,  and  gnawed, 
until  at  last  she  smashed  two  front  teeth.  Then  she  ran  to  a 
forge,  and  when  she  reached  it  she  cried,  "  Smith,  smith !  make 
me  some  iron  teeth  ;  if  you  don't  I'll  eat  you  !  " 

So  the  smith  forged  her  two  iron  teeth. 

The  witch  returned  and  began  gnawing  the  oak  again. 

She  gnawed,  and  gnawed,  and  was  just  on  the  point  of 
gnawing  it  through,  when  Ivashko  jumped  out  of  it  into  another 
tree  which  stood  beside  it.  The  oak  that  the  witch  had  gnawed 
through  fell  down  to  the  ground  ;  but  then  she  saw  that  Ivashko 
was  sitting  up  in  another  tree,  so  she  gnashed  her  teeth  with 
spite  and  set  to  work  afresh,  to  gnaw  that  tree  also.  She  gnawed, 
and  gnawed,  and  gnawed — broke  two  lower  teeth,  and  ran  off  to 
the  forge. 

"  Smith,  smith  !  "  she  cried  when  she  got  there,  "  make  me 
some  iron  teeth  ;  if  you  don't  I'll  eat  you  !  " 

The  smith  forged  two  more  iron  teeth  for  her.  She  went 
back  again,  and  once  more  began  to  gnaw  the  oak. 

Ivashko  did'nt  know  what  he  was  to  do  now.  He  looked 
out,  and  saw  that  swans  and  geese*  were  flying  by,  so  he  called 
to  them  imploringly  : 

Oh,  my  swans  and  geese, 
Take  me  on  your  pinions, 

*  Gusi — lebedi,  geese — swans. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  175 

Bear  me  to  my  father  and  my  mother, 

To  the  cottage  of  my  father  and  my  mother, 

There  to  eat,  and  drink,  and  live  in  comfort. 

"  Let  those  in  the  centre  carry  you,"  said  the  birds. 
Ivashko  waited  ;  a  second  flock  flew  past,  and  he  again  cried 
imploringly  : 

Oh,  my  swans  and  geese! 

Take  me  on  your  pinions, 

Bear  me  to  my  father  and  my  mother, 

To  the  cottage  of  my  father  and  my  mother, 

There  to  eat,  and  drink,  and  live  in  comfort. 

"  Let  those  in  the  rear  carry  you  !  "  said  the  birds. 
Again   Ivashko  waited.     A  third  flock  came  flying  up,  and 
he  cried : 

Oh,  my  swans  and  geese! 

Take  me  on  your  pinions, 

Bear  me  to  my  father  and  my  mother, 

To  the  cottage  of  my  father  and  my  mother. 

There  to  eat,  and  drink,  and  live  in  comfort. 

And  those  swans  and  geese  took  hold  of  him  and  carried 
him  back,  flew  up  to  the  cottage,  and  dropped  him  in  the  upper 
room. 

Early  the  next  morning  his  mother  set  to  work  to  bake  pan- 
cakes, baked  them,  and  all  of  a  sudden  fell  to  thinking  about 
her  boy.  "  Where  is  my  Ivashko  ? "  she  cried  ;  "  would  that  I 
could  see  him,  were  it  only  in  a  dream  !  " 

Then  his  father  said,  "  I  dreamed  that  swans  and  geese  had 
brought  our  Ivashko  home  on  their  wings." 

And  when  she  had  finished  baking  the  pancakes,  she  said, 
"  Now,  then,  old  man,  let's  divide  the  cakes :  there's  for  you, 
father !  there's  for  me !  There's  for  you,  father !  there's  for 
me." 

"  And  none  for  me  ?  "  called  out  Ivashko. 

"  There's  for  you,  father  !  "  went  on  the  old  woman,  "  there's 
for  me." 

"  And  none  for  me  !  "  [repeated  the  boy.] 

"  Why,  old  man,"  said  the  wife,  "go  and  see  whatever  that 
is  up  there." 

The  father  climbed  into  the  upper  room  and  there  he  found 


176  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Ivashko.  The  old  people  were  delighted,  and  asked  their  boy 
about  everything  that  had  happened.  And  after  that  he  and 
they  lived  on  happily  together. 

[That  part  of  this  story  which  relates  to  the  baking  and  eating  of  the  witch  s 
daughter  is  well  known  in  many  lands.  It  is  found  in  the  German  "  Hansel  und 
Grethel  "  (Grimm.  К.  M.  No.  15,  and  iii.  p.  25,  where  a  number  of  parallels  aie 
mentioned);  in  the  Norse  "  Askelad''  (Asbjbrnsen  and  Мое,  No.  I.  Dasent,  "  Boots 
and  the  Troll,"  No.  32),  where  a  Troll's  daughter  is  baked  ;  and  "  Smorbuk"  (Asb. 
and  Мое,  No.  52.  Dasent,  "  Buttercup,"  No.  18),  in  which  the  victim  is  daughter 
of  a  "  Haugkjcerring,"  another  name  for  a  Troll-wife ;  in  the  Servian  story  of  "  The 
Stepmother,"  &c.  (Vuk  Karajich,  No.  35,  pp.  174--5)  in  which  two  Chivuti,  or  Jews, 
are  tricked  into  eating  their  baked  mother;  in  the  Modern  Greek  stories  (Hahn,  No. 
3  and  ii.  p.  181),  in  which  the  hero  bakes  (1)  a  Drakana,  while  her  husband,  the 
Drakos,  is  at  church,  (2)  a  Lamiojntla,  during  the  absence  of  the  Lamia,  her  mother  ; 
and  in  the  Albanian  story  of  "  Augenhiindin  "  (Hahn,  No.  95),  in  which  the  heroine 
gets  rid  in  a  similar  manner  of  Maro,  the  daughter  of  that  four  eyed  GVlilEVEL,a.  (See 
note,  ii.  309.)  Afanasief  also  refers  (i.  p.  121)  to  Haltrich,  No.  37,  and  Haupt  and 
Schmaler,  ii.  pp.  172-4.  He  also  mentions  a  similar  tale  about  a  giantess  existing 
among  the  Baltic  Kashoubes.  See  also  the  end  of  the  song  of  Tardanak,  showing 
how  he  killed  "  the  Seven  Headed  Jelbegen,"  Radloff,  i.  p.  31.] 

A  variant  of  this  story  (from  the  Chernigof  Govern- 
ment) *  begins  by  telling  how  two  old  people  were  childless 
for  a  long  time.  At  last  the  husband  went  into  the  forest, 
felled  wood,  and  made  a  cradle.  Into  this  his  wife  laid 
one  of  the  logs  he  had  cut,  and  began  swinging  it,  croon- 
ing the  while  a  rune  beginning 

Swing,  blockie  dear,  swing. 

After  a  little  time  "  behold  !  the  block  already  had  legs. 
The  old  woman  rejoiced  greatly  and  began  singing  anew, 
and  went  on  singing  until  the  block  became  a  babe."  In 
this  variant  the  boy  rows  a  silver  boat  with  a  golden  oar ; 
in  another  South  Russian  variant  f  the  boat  is  golden,  the 
oar  of  silver.  In  a  White-Russian  variant  quoted  by 
Afanasief  (i.  p.  n8);the  place  of  the  witch's  daughter  is 
filled  by  her  son,  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  alluring  to 
her  den  by  gifts  of  toys,  and  there  devouring,  the  children 

•  Afanasief,  i.  No.  4.  t  Kulish,  ii.  17- 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  177 

fiom  the  adjacent  villages.  Buslaef's  "  Historical  Essays," 
(i.  pp.  313-321)  contain  a  valuable  investigation  of  Kulish's 
version  of  this  story,  which  he  compares  with  the  romance 
of  "  The  Knight  of  the  Swan." 

In  another  of  the  variants  of  this  story  *  Ivanushka  is 
the  son  of  a  Baruinya  or  Lady,  and  he  is  carried  off  in  a 
whirlwind  by  a  Baba  Yaga.  His  three  sisters  go  to  look 
for  him,  and  each  of  them  in  turn  finds  out  where  he  is 
and  attempts  to  carry  him  off,  after  sending  the  Baba 
Yaga  to  sleep  and  smearing  her  eyelids  with  pitch.  But 
the  two  elder  sisters  are  caught  on  their  way  home  by  the 
Baba  Yaga,  and  terribly  scratched  and  torn.  The  youngest 
sister,  however,  succeeds  in  rescuing  her  brother,  having 
taken  the  precaution  of  propitiating  with  butter  the  cat 
Jeremiah,  "  who  was  telling  the  boy  stories  and  singing 
him  songs."  When  the  Baba  Yaga  awakes,  she  tells 
Jeremiah  to  scratch  her  eyes  open,  but  he  refuses,  remind- 
ing her  that,  long  as  he  has  lived  under  her  roof,  she  has 
never  in  any  way  regaled  him,  whereas  the  "  fair  maiden  " 
had  no  sooner  arrived  than  she  treated  him  to  butter.  In 
another  variant  t  the  bereaved  mother  sends  three  servants- 
maids  in  search  of  her  boy.  Two  of  them  get  torn  to 
pieces  ;  the  third  succeeds  in  saving  Ivanushka  from  the 
Baba  Yaga,  who  is  so  vexed  that  she  pinches  her  butter- 
bribed  cat  to  death,  for  not  having  awakened  her  when 
the  rescue  took  place.  A  comparison  of  these  three 
stories  is  sufficient  to  show  how  closely  connected  are  the 
Witch  and  the  Baba  Yaga,  how  readily  the  name  of  either 
of  the  two  may  be  transferred  to  the  other. 

But  there  is  one  class  of  stories  in  which  the  Vyed'ma 
is  represented  as  differing  from  the  Baba  Yaga,  in  so  far 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  53.  t  Id.  No.  52. 


178  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

as  she  is  the  offspring  of  parents  who  are  not  in  any  way 
supernatural  or  inhuman.  Without  any  apparent  cause 
for  her  abnormal  conduct,  the  daughter  of  an  ordinary 
royal  house  will  suddenly  begin  to  destroy  and  devour  all 
living  things  which  fall  in  her  way — her  strength  develop- 
ing as  rapidly  as  her  appetite.  Of  such  a  nature — to  be 
accounted  for  only  on  the  supposition  that  an  evil  spirit 
has  taken  up  its  abode  in  a  human  body  * — is  the  witch 
who  appears  in  the  somewhat  incomprehensible  story  that 

follows. 

The  Witch  and  the  Sun's  Sister. f 

In  a  certain  far-off  country  there  once  lived  a  king  and  queen. 
And  they  had  an  only  son,  Prince  Ivan,  who  was  dumb  from 
his  birth.  One  day,  when  he  was  twelve  years  old,  he  went  into 
the  stable  to  see  a  groom  who  was  a  great  friend  of  his. 

That  groom  always  used  to  tell  him  tales  \_skazki\  and  on 
this  occasion  Prince  Ivan  went  to  him  expecting  to  hear  some 
stories  \skazochki\,  but  that  wasn't  what  he  heard. 

"Prince  Ivan!"  said  the  groom,  "your  mother  will  soon 
have  a  daughter,  and  you  a  sister.  She  will  be  a  terrible  witch, 
and  she  will  eat  up  her  father,  and  her  mother,  and  all  their  sub- 
jects. So  go  and  ask  your  father  for  the  best  horse  he  has — as 
if  you  wanted- a  gallop — and  then,  if  you  want  to  be  out  of  harm's 
way,  ride  away  whithersoever  your  eyes  guide  you." 

Prince  Ivan  ran  off  to  his  father  and,  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  began  speaking  to  him. 

At  that  the  king  was  so  delighted  that  he  never  thought  of 
asking  what  he  wanted  a  good  steed  for,  but  immediately  order- 

*  The  demonism  of  Ceylon  "  represents  demons  as  having  huxtati  fathers  and 
mothers,  and  as  being  born  ir  the  ordinary  course  of  nature.  Though  born  of  human 
parents,  all  their  qualities  art  different  from  those  of  men.  They  leave  their  parents 
sometime  after  their  birth,  b  \  before  doing  so,  they  generally  take  care  to  try  their 
demoniac  powers  on  them."  "  Demonology  ar.d  Witchcraft  in  Ceylon."  By  Dan- 
dris  de  Silva  Gooneratne  Modliar.  "  Journal  of  Ceylon  Branch  of  Royal  Asiatic 
Society,"  1865-6,  p.  17. 

t  Afanasief,  vi.  No.  57-    From  the  Ukraine. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  179 

ed  the  very  fr;st  horse  he  had  in  his  stud  to  be  saddled  for  the 
prince. 

Prince  Ivan  mounted,  and  rode  off  without  caring  where  he 
went*     Long,  long  did  he  ride. 

At  length  he  came  to  where  two  old  woman  were  sewing 
and  he  begged  them  to  let  him  live  with  them.     But  thev  said  : 

"  Gladly  would  we  do  so,  Prince  Ivan,  only  we  have  now 
but  a  short  time  to  live.  As  soon  as  we  have  broken  that  trunk- 
ful  of  needles,  and  used  up  that  trunkful  of  thread,  that  instant 
will  death  arrive  !  " 

Prince  Ivan  burst  into  tears  and  rode  on.  Long,  long  did 
he  ride.  At  length  he  came  to  where  the  giant  Vertodub  was,f 
and  he  besought  him,  saying  : 

"Take  me  to  live  with  you." 

"  Gladly  would  I  have  taken  you,  Prince  Ivan  ! "  replied  the 
giant,  "  but  now  I  have  very  little  longer  to  live.  As  soon  as  1 
have  pulled  up  all  these  trees  by  the  roots,  instantly  will  come 
my  death ! " 

More  bitterly  still  did  the  prince  weep  as  he  rode  farther  and 
farther  on.  By-and-by  he  came  to  where  the  giant  Vertogor 
was,  and  made  the  same  request  to  him,  but  he  replied  : 

"  Gladly  would  I  have  taken  you,  Prince  Ivan  !  but  I  myself 
have  very  little  longer  to  live.  I  am  set  here,  you  know,  to 
level  mountains.  The  moment  I  have  settled  matters  with  these 
you  see  remaining,  then  will  my  death  come  !  " 

Prince  Ivan  burst  into  a  flood  of  bitter  tears,  and  rode  on 
still  farther.  Long,  long  did  he  ride.  At  last  he  came  to  the 
dwelling  of  the  Sun's  Sister.  She  received  him  into  her  house, 
gave  him  food  and  drink,  and  treated  him  just  as  if  he  hid  been 
her  own  son. 

The  prince  now  led  an  easy  life.     But  it  was  all  no  use  ;  he 


•  "  Whither  [his]  eyes  look." 

t  Vertodub,  the  Tree-extractor  (vertyet=lo  twirl,  du5=tree  or  oak)  is  the  Ger- 
man Baumdreher  or  H olzkrummacher  ;  Vertogor  the  Mountain  leveller  (£\тл=> 
mountain)  answers  to  the  Steinzerreiber  or  FeUenkr ipperer . 


180  R  USSIAN  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

couldn't  he'p  being  miserable.  He  longed  so  to  know  what  was 
going  on  at  home. 

He  often  went  to  the  top  of  a  high  mountain,  and  thence 
gazed  at  the  palace  in  which  he  used  to  live,  and  he  could  see 
that  it  was  all  eaten  away  ;  nothing  but  the  bare  walls  remained  t 
Then  he  would  sigh  and  weep.  Once  when  he  returned  after 
he  had  been  thus  looking  and  crying,  the  Sun's  Sister  asked 
him : 

"  What  makes  your  eyes  so  red  to-day,  Prince  Ivan  ?  "  * 

"  The  wind  has  been  blowing  in  them,"  said  he. 

The  same  thing  happened  a  second  time.  Then  the  Sun's 
Sister  ordered  the  wind  to  stop  blowing.  Again  a  third  time 
did  Prince  Ivan  come  back  with  a  blubbered  face.  This  time 
there  was  no  help  for  it ;  he  had  to  confess  everything,  and  then 
he  took  to  entreating  the  Sun's  Sister  to  let  him  go,  that  he 
might  satisfy  himself  about  his  old  home.  She  would  not  let 
him  go,  but  he  went  on  urgently  entreating. 

So  at  last  he  persuaded  her,  and  she  let  him  go  away  to 
find  out  about  his  home.  But  first  she  provided  him  for  the 
journey  with  a  brush,  a  comb,  and  two  youth-giving  apples. 
However  old  any  one  might  be,  let  him  eat  one  of  these  apples, 
he  would  grow  young  again  in  an  instant. 

Well,  Prince  Ivan  came  to  where  Vertogor  was.  There  was 
only  just  one  mountain  left !  He  took  his  brush  and  cast  it 
down  on  the  open  plain.  Immediately  there  rose  out  of  the 
earth,  goodness  knows  whence,f  bigh,  ever  so  high  mountains, 
their  peaks  touching  the  sky.  And  the  number  of  them  was 
such  that  there  were  more  than  the  eye  could  see  !  %  Vertogor 
rejoiced  greatly  and  blithely  recommenced  his  work. 

After  a  time  Prince  Ivan  came  to  where  Vertodub  was,  and 
found  that  there  were  only  three  trees  remaining  there.  So  he 
took  the  comb  and  flung  it  on  the  open  plain.     Immediately  from 

*  Why  are  you  just  now  so  zaplakannoi  or  blubbered.     (Zatylaka? ,  or  plahat  ■>• 
to  cry.) 

t  Otkuda  ni  vzyalis. 

t  Vidimo—ncvidimo,  visibly — invisibly. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  181 

somewhere  or  other  there  came  a  sound  of  trees,*  and  forth  from 
the  ground  arose  dense  oak  forests  !  each  stem  more  huge  than 
the  other !  Vertodub  was  delighted,  thanked  the  Prince,  and 
set  to  work  uprooting  the  ancient  oaks. 

By-and-by  Prince  Ivan  reached  the  old  women,  and  gave 
each  of  them  an  apple.  They  ate  them,  and  straightway  became 
young  again.  So  they  gave  him  a  handkerchief;  you  only  had 
to  wave  it,  and  behind  you  lay  a  whole  lake  !  At  last  Prince 
Ivan  arrived  at  home.  Out  came  running  his  sister  to  meet  him, 
caressed  him  fondly. 

"  Sit  thee  down,  my  brother  !  "  she  said,  "play  a  tune  on  the 
lute  while  I  go  and  get  dinner  ready." 

The  Prince  sat  down  and  strummed  away  on  the  lute  \_gus!i.~\ 

Then  there  crept  a  mouse  out  of  a  hole,  and  said  to  him  in  a 
human  voice  : 

"  Save  yourself,  Prince.  Run  away  quick !  your  sister  has 
gone  to  sharpen  her  teeth." 

Prince  Ivan  fled  from  the  room,  jumped  on  his  horse,  and 
galloped  away  back.  Meantime  the  mouse  kept  running  over 
the  strings  of  the  lute.  They  twanged,  and  the  sister  never 
guessed  that  her  brother  was  off.  When  she  had  sharpened 
her  teeth  she  burst  into  the  room.  Lo  and  behold  !  not  a  soul 
was  there,  nothing  but  the  mouse  bolting  into  its  hole !  The 
witch  waxed  wroth,  ground  her  teeth  like  anything,  and  set  off 
in  pursuit. 

Prince  Ivan  heard  a  loud  noise  and  looked  back.  There  was 
his  sister  chasing  him.  So  he  waved  his  handkerchief,  and  a 
deep  lake  lay  behind  him.  While  the  witch  was  swimming  across 
the  water,  Prince  Ivan  got  a  long  way  ahead.  But  on  she  came 
faster  than  ever ;  and  полу  she  was  close  at  hand !  Vertodub 
guessed  that  the  Prince  was  trying  to  escape  from  his  sister. 
So  he  began  tearing  up  oaks  and  strewing  them  across  the  road. 
A  regular  mountain  did  he  pile  up  !  there  was  no  passing  by  for 
the  witch  !  So  she  set  to  work  to  clear  the  way.     She  gnawed, 

•  Zashumyeli,  they  began  to  produce  a  shum  or  noise. 


182  R  USSIA  N  FOLK-  ТА  L  ES. 

and  gnawed,  and  at  length  contrived  by  hard  work  to  bore  het 
way  through  ;  but  by  this  time  Prince  Ivan  was  far  ahead. 

On  she  dashed  in  pursuit,  chased  and  chased.  Just  a  little 
more,  and  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  escape  !  But  Verto- 
gor  spied  the  witch,  laid  hold  of  the  very  highest  of  all  the  moun- 
tains, pitched  it  down  all  of  a  heap  on  the  road,  and  flung 
another  mountain  right  on  top  of  it.  While  the  witch  was 
climbing  and  clambering,  Prince  Ivan  rode  and  rode,  and  found 
himself  a  long  way  ahead.  At  last  the  witch  got  across  the 
mountain,  and  once  more  set  off  in  pursuit  of  her  brother.  By 
and-by  she  caught  sight  of  him,  and  exclaimed : 

"  You  sha'n't  get  away  from  me  this  time  !  "  And  now  she  is 
close,  now  she  is  just  going  to  catch  him  ! 

At  that  very  moment  Prince  Ivan  dashed  up  to  the  abode  of 
the  Sun's  Sister  and  cried  : 

"  Sun,  Sun  !  open  the  window  !  " 

The  Sun's  Sister  opened  the  window,  and  the  Prince  bound- 
ed through  it,  horse  and  all. 

Then  the  witch  began  to  ask  that  her  brother  might  be  given 
up  to  her  for  punishment.  The  Sun's  Sister  would  not  listen 
to  her,  nor  would  she  give  him  up.     Then  the  witch  said : 

"  Let  Prince  Ivan  be  weighed  against  me,  to  see  which  is  the 
heavier.  If  I  am,  then  I  will  eat  him ;  but  if  he  is,  then  let  him 
kill  me !  " 

This  was  done.  Prince  Ivan  was  the  first  to  get  into  one  of 
the  scales  ;  then  the  witch  began  to  get  into  the  other.  But  no 
sooner  had  she  set  foot  in  it  than  up  shot  Prince  Ivan  in  the  air, 
and  that  with  such  force  that  he  flew  right  up  into  the  sky,  and 
into  the  chamber  of  the  Sun's  Sister. 

But  as  for  the  Witch-Snake,  she  remained  down  below  on 
earth. 

[The  word  terem  (plural  terema)  which  occurs  twice  in  this  story  (rendered  the 
second  time  by  "  chamber")  deserves  a  special  notice-  It  is  denned  by  Dahl,  in  its 
antique  sense,  as  "  a  raised,  lofty  habitation,  or  part  of  one — a  Boyar's  castle — a 
Seigneur's  house — the  dweliir.g-place  of  a  ruler  within  a  fortress,"  &c.  The  "  terem 
of  the  women,"  sometimes  styled  "  of  the  girls,"  used  to  comprise  the  part  of  a  Seign- 
eur's house,  on  the  upper  floor,  set    aside  for  the  female  members  of  bis  family. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  183 

Dahl  compares  it  with  the  Russian  tyurnia,  a  prison,  and  the  German  Tkurm.  But 
it  seems  really  to  be  derived  from  the  Greek  rkpfjivov,  "anything  closely  shut  fast 
OJ"  closely  covered,  a  room,  chamber,"  &c. 

That  part  of  the  story  which  refers  to  the  Cannibal  Princess  is  familiar  to  the 
Modern  Greeks.  In  the  Syriote  tale  of  "  The  Strigla  "  (Hahn,  No-  65)  a  princess 
devours  her  father  and  all  his  subjects.  Her  brother,  who  had  escaped  while  she  was 
still  a  babe,  visits  her  and  is  kindly  received.  But  while  she  is  sharpening  her  teeth 
with  a  view  towards  eating  him,  a  mouse  gives  him  a  warning  which  saves  his  life. 
As  in  the  Russian  story  the  mouse  jumps  about  on  the  strings  of  a  lute  in  order  to 
deceive  the  witch,  so  in  the  Greek  it  plays  a  fiddle.  But  the  Greek  hero  does  not 
leave  his  sister's  abode.  After  remaining  concealed  one  night,  he  again  accosts  her. 
She  attempts  to  eat  him,  but  he  kills  her. 

In  a  variant  from  Epirus  (Hahn,  ii.  p.  283-4)  the  cannibal  princess  is  called  a 
Chursusissa.  Her  brother  climbs  a  tree,  the  stem  of  which  she  gnaws  almost  asun- 
der.    But  before  it  falls,  a  Lamia  comes  to  his  aid  and  kills  his  sister. 

Afanasief  (viii.  p.  527)  identifies  the  Sun's  Sister  with  the  Dawn.  The  following 
explanation  of  the  skazka  (with  the  exception  of  the  words  within  brackets)  is  given 
by  A.  de  Gubernatis  ("  Zool.  Myth."  i.  183).  "Ivan  is  the  Sun,  the  aurora  [or 
dawn]  is  his  [true]  sister  ;  at  morning,  near  the  abode  of  the  aurora,  that  is,  in  the 
east,  the  shades  of  night  [his  witch,  or  false  sister]  go  underground,  and  the  Sun 
arises  to  the  heavens  ;  this  is  the  mythical  pair  of  scales.  Thus  in  the  Christian 
belief,  St.  Michael  weighs  human  souls  ;  those  who  weigh  much  sink  down  into  hell, 
and  those  who  are  ligh*  arise  to  the  heavenly  paradise."] 

As  an  illustration  of  this  story,  Afanasief  {P.  V.  S.  iii. 
272)  quotes  a  Little-Russian  Skazka  in  which  a  man,  who 
is  seeking  "  the  Isle  in  which  there  is  no  death,"  meets 
with  various  personages  like  those  with  whom  the  Prince 
at  first  wished  to  stay  on  his  journey,  and  at  last  takes  up 
his  abode  with  the  moon.  Death  comes  in  search  of  him, 
after  a  hundred  years  or  so  have  elapsed,  and  engages  in 
a  struggle  with  the  Moon,  the  result  of  which  is  that  the 
man  is  caught  up  into  the  sky,  and  there  shines  thence- 
forth "as  a  star  near  the  moon." 

The  Sun's  Sister  is  a  mythical  being  who  is  often  men- 
tioned in  the  popular  poetry  of  the  South-Slavonians.  A 
Servian  song  represents  a  beautiful  maiden,  with  "  arms  of 
silver  up  to  the  elbows,"  sitting  on  a  silver  throne  which 
floats  on  water.  A  suitor  comes  to  woo  her.  She  waxes 
wroth  and  cries, 


184  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Whom  wishes  he  to  woo  ? 
The  sister  of  the  Sun, 
The  cousin  of  the  Moon, 
The  adopted-sister  of  the  Dawn. 

Then  she  flings  down  three  golden  apples,  which  the 
"  marriage-proposers  "  attempt  to  catch,  but  "  three  light- 
nings flash  from  the  sky "  and  kill  the  suitor  and  his 
friends. 

In  another  Servian  song  a  girl  cries  to  the  Sun — 

О  brilliant  Sun  !   I  am  fairer  than  thou, 
Than  thy  brother,  the  bright  Moon, 
Than  thy  sister,  the  moving  star  [Venus  ?]• 

In  South-Slavonian  poetry  the  sun  often  figures  as  a 
radiant  youth.  But  among  the  Northern  Slavonians,  as 
well  as  the  Lithuanians,  the  sun  was  regarded  as  a  female 
being,  the  bride  of  the  moon.  "  Thou  askest  me  of  what 
race,  of  what  family  I  am,"  says  the  fair  maiden  of  a  song 
preserved  in  the  Tambof  Government — 

My  mother  is  —  the  beauteous  Sun, 
And  my  father  —  the  bright  Moon  ; 
My  brothers  are  —  the  many  Stars, 
And  my  sisters  —  the  white  Dawns.* 

A  far  more  detailed  account  might  be  given  of  the 
Witch  and  her  near  relation  the  Baba  Yaga,  as  well  as  of 
those  masculine  embodiments  of  that  spirit  of  evil  which 
is  personified  in  them,  the  Snake,  Koshchei,  and  other 
similar  beings.  But  the  stories  which  have  been  quoted 
will  suffice  to  give  at  least  a  general  idea  of  their  moral 
and  physical  attributes.  We  will  now  turn  from  their 
forms,  so  constantly  introduced  into  the  skazka-drama,  to 

*  Afanasief,  P.V.S.,  i.  80-S4.  In  the  Albanian  story  of  "The  Serpent  Child," 
(Hahn,  No.  100),  the  heroine,  the  wife  of  the  man  whom  forty  snake-sloughs  encase, 
is  assisted  in  her  troubles  by  two  subterranean  beings  whom  she  finds  employed  in 
baking.  They  use  their  hands  instead  of  shovels,  and  clean  out  the  oven  with  their 
breasts.     They  are  called  "  Sisters  of  the  Sun." 


MYTH0L0GIC4T  185 

some  of  the  supernatural  figures  which  are  not  so  often 
brought  upon  the  stage — to  those  mythical  beings  of  whom 
(numerous  as  may  be  the  traditions  about  them)  the  regu- 
lar "  story  "  does  not  so  often  speak,  to  such  personifica- 
tions of  abstract  ideas  as  are  less  frequently  employed  to 
set  its  conventional  machinery  in  motion. 


t60  RUbSfAN  FOLK-TALES, 


CHAPTER  III. 

MYTHOLOGICAL. 

Miscellaneous  Itnpersoiilfications . 

Somewhat  resembling  the  picture  usually  drawn  of  the  su- 
pernatural Witch  in  the  Skazkas,  is  that  which  some  of 
them  offer  of  a  personification  of  evil  called  Likho.*  The 
following  story,  belonging  to  the  familiar  Polyphemus-cycle, 
will  serve  to  convey  an  idea  of  this  baleful  being,  who  in 
it  takes  a  female  form. 

One-Eyed  Likho.* 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  smith.  "Well  now,"  says 
he,  "  I've  never  set  eyes  on  any  harm.  They  say  there's  evil 
{likko)\  in  the  world.  I'll  go  and  seek  me  out  evil."  So  he 
went  and  had  a  goodish  drink,  and  then  started  in  search  of 
evil.  On  the  way  he  met  a  tailor. 
"  Good  day,"  says  the  Tailor. 

*  The  adjective  likhoi  has  two  opposite  meanings,  sometimes  signifying  what  is 
evil,  hurtful,  malicious,  &c,  sometimes  what  is  bold,  vigorous,  and  therefore  to  be 
admired.  As  a  substantive,  likho  conveys  the  idea  of  something  malevolent  or  un- 
fortunate. The  Polish  licho  properly  signifies  uneven.  But  odd  numbers  are  some- 
times considered  unlucky.  Polish  housewives,  for  instance,  think  it  imprudent  to  al- 
low their  hens  to  sit  on  an  uneven  number  of  eggs.  But  the  peasantry  also  describe 
by  Licho  an  evil  spirit,  a  sort  of  devil.  (Wojcicki  in  the  "  Encyklopedyja  Pows- 
zechna,"  xvii.  p  17.)  When  Likho  sleeps,  awake  it  not,"  says  a  proverb  common  to 
Poland  and  South  Russia. 

t  Afanasief,  iii.  No.  14.     From  the  Voroneje  Government. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  187 

"Good  day." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  "  asks  the  Tailor. 

"  Well,  brother,  everybody  says  there  is  evil  on  earth.  But 
I've  never  seen  any,  so  I'm  going  to  look  for  it." 

"Let's  go  together.  I'm  a  thriving  man,  too,  and  have  seen 
no  evil;  let's  go  and  have  a  hunt  for  some." 

Well,  they  walked  and  walked  till  they  reached  a  dark,  dense 
forest.  In  it  they  found  a  small  path,  and  along  it  they  went — 
along  the  narrow  path.  They  walked  and  walked  along  the  path, 
and  at  last  they  saw  a  large  cottage  standing  before  them.  It 
was  night ;  there  was  nowhere  else  to  go  to.  "  Look  here," 
they  say,  "  let's  go  into  that  cottage."  In  they  went.  There 
was  nobody  there.  All  looked  bare  and  squalid.  They  sat 
down,  and  remained  sitting  there  some  time.  Presently  in 
came  a  tall  woman,  lank,  crooked,  with  only  one  eye. 

"Ah  !  "  says  she,  "  I've  visitors.    Good  day  to  you." 

"  Good  day,  grandmother.  We've  come  to  pass  the  night 
under  your  roof." 

"Very  good  :  I  shall  have  something  to  sup  on." 

Thereupon  they  were  greatly  terrified.  As  for  her,  she  went 
and  fetched  a  great  heap  of  firewood.  She  brought  in  the  heap 
of  firewood,  flung  it  into  the  stove,  and  set  it  alight.  Then  she 
went  up  to  the  two  men,  took  one  of  them — the  Tailor- — cut  his 
throat,  trussed  him,  and  put  him  in  the  oven. 

Meantime  the  Smith  sat  there,  thinking,  "  What's  to  be  done  ? 
how's  one  to  save  one's  life  ?  "  When  she  had  finished  her 
supper,  the  Smith  looked  at  the  oven  and  said  : 

"  Granny,  I'm  a  smith." 

"  What  can  you  forge  ?  " 

"  Anything." 

"Make  me  an  eye." 

"  Good,"  says  he  ;  "  but  have  you  got  any  cord  ?  I  must 
tie  you  up,  or  you  won't  keep  still.  I  shall  have  to  hammer 
your  eye  in." 

She  went  and  fetched  two  cords,  one  rather  thin,  the  other 
thicker.     Well,  he  bound  her  with  the  one  which  was  thinnest. 


188  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  Now  then,  granny,"  says  he,  "just  turn  over."  She  turned 
over,  and  broke  the  cord. 

"  That  won't  do,  granny,"  says  he  ;  "that  cord  doesn't  suit." 

He  took  the  thick  cord,  and  tied  her  up  with  it  famously. 

"  Now  then,  turn  away,  granny !  "  says  he.  She  turned  and 
twisted,  but  didn't  break  the  cord.  Then  he  took  an  awl,  heat- 
ed it  red-hot,  and  applied  it  to  her  eye — her  sound  one.  At 
the  same  moment  he  caught  up  a  hatchet,  and  hammered  away 
vigorously  with  the  back  of  it  at  the  awl.  She  struggled  like 
anything,  and  broke  the  cord ;  then  she  went  and  sat  down  at 
the  threshold. 

"  Ah,  villain  !  "  she  cried.  "  You  sha'n't  get  away  from  me 
now ! " 

He  saw  that  he  was  in  an  evil  plight  again.  There  he  sat, 
thinking,  "  What's  to  be  done  ?  " 

By-and-by  the  sheep  came  home  from  afield,  and  she  drove 
them  into  her  cottage  for  the  night.  Well,  the  Smith  spent  the 
night  there,  too.  In  the  morning  she  got  up  to  let  the  sheep 
out.  He  took  his  sheep-skin  pelisse  and  turned  it  inside  out 
so  that  the  wool  was  outside,  passed  his  arms  through  its 
sleeves,  and  pulled  it  well  over  him,  and  crept  up  to  her  as  if 
he  had  been  a  sheep.  She  let  the  flock  go  out  one  at  a  time, 
catching  hold  of  each  by  the  wool  on  its  back,  and  shoving  it 
out.  Well,  he  came  creeping  up  like  the  rest.  She  caught 
hold  of  the  wool  on  his  back  and  shoved  him  out.  But  as 
soon  as  she  had  shoved  him  out,  he  stood  up  and  cried  : 

"  Farewell,  Likho  !  I  have  suffered  much  evil  {likha)  at  your 
hands.     Now  you  can  do  nothing  to  me." 

"  Wait  a  bit !  "  she  replied  ;  "  you  shall  endure  still  more. 
You  haven't  escaped  yet ! " 

The  Smith  went  back  through  the  forest  along  the  narrow 
path.  Presently  he  saw  a  golden-handled  hatchet  sticking  in  a 
tree,  and  he  felt  a  strong  desire  to  seize  it.  Well,  he  did  seize 
that  hatchet,  and  his  hand  stuck  fast  to  it.  What  was  to  be 
done  ?  There  was  no  freeing  it  anyhow.  He  gave  a  look  be- 
hind him.     There  was  Likho  coming  after  him,  and  crying  : 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  Ш 

"  There  you  are,  villain  !     you've  not  got  off  yet !  " 

The  Smith  pulled  out  a  small  knife  which  he  had  in  his 
pocket,  and  began  hacking  away  at  his  hand — cut  it  clean  off 
and  ran  away.  When  he  reached  his  village,  he  immediately 
began  to  show  his  arm  as  a  proof  that  he  had  seen  Likho  at  last. 

"  Look,"  says  he,  "  that's  the  state  of  things.  Here  am  I," 
says  he,  "  without  my  hand.  And  as  for  my  comrade,  she's 
eaten  him  up  entirely." 

In  a  Little-Russian  variant  of  this  story,  quoted  by 
Afanasief,  *  (III.  p.  137)  a  man,  who  often  hears  evil  or 
misfortune  {likho)  spoken  of,  sets  out  in  search  of  it.  One 
day  he  sees  an  iron  castle  beside  a  wood,  surrounded  by  a 
palisade  of  human  bones  tipped  with  skulls.  He  knocks  at 
the  door,  and  a  voice  cries  "  What  do  you  want  ? "  "I  want 
evil,"  he  replies.  "  That's  what  I'm  looking  for."  "  Evil  is 
here  "  cries  the  voice.  So  in  he  goes,  and  finds  a  huge, 
blind  giant  lying  within,  stretched  on  a  couch  of  human 
bones.  "This  was  Likho  (Evil),"  says  the  story,  "  and  around 
him  were  seated  Zluidni  (Woes)  and  Zhurba  (Care)."  Find- 
ing that  Likho  intends  to  eat  him,  the  misfortune-seeker 
takes  to  flight.  Likho  hears  the  iron  doors  creak,  and  cries 
to  them  to  stop  the  fugitive.  "  But  he  had  already  passed 
out  of  doors.  Only  he  lost  his  right  hand,  on  which  the 
door  slammed  :  whereupon  he  exclaimed  '  Here's  misfor- 
tune, sure  enough  ! '  " 

The  opening  of  the  story  of  Likho  is  somewhat  similar 
to  that  of  one  of  the  tales  of  Indian  origin  translated  by 
Stanislas  Julien  from  the  Chinese.  Once  upon  a  time,  we 
are  told,  a  king  grew  weary  of  good  fortune,  so  he  sent 
messengers  in  search  of  misfortune.  It  a  certain  god  sold 
to  them,  in  the  shape  of  a  sow  which  devoured  a  peck  of 
needles   a  day.      The  king's  agents  took  to  worrying  his 

*  From  an  article  by  Borovikovsky  in  the  "  Otech.  Zap."  1840,  No.  a. 


190  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

subjects  for  needles,  and  brought  such  trouble  upon  the 
whole  kingdom,  that  his  ministers  entreated  him  to  have 
the  beast  put  to  death.  He  consented,  and  it  was  led  forth 
to  die.  But  neither  knife  nor  axe  could  penetrate  its  hide, 
so  they  tried  to  consume  it  with  fire.  After  a  time  it 
became  red-hot,  and  then  it  leaped  out  from  amid  the 
flames,  and  dashed  about  setting  fire  to  all  manner  of  things. 
The  conflagration  spread  and  was  followed  by  famine,  so 
that  the  whole  land  was  involved  in  ruin.  * 

The  Polyphemusstory  has  been  so  thoroughly  investi- 
gated by  Wilhelm  Grimm, f  that  there  is  no  occasion  to 
dwell  upon  in  here.  But  the  following  statement  is  worthy 
of  notice.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Ukraine  are  said  still  to 
retain  some  recollection  of  the  one-eyed  nation  of  Arimas- 
pians  of  whom  Herodotus  speaks  (Bk.  IV.  с  27).  Accord- 
ing to  them  the  One- Eyes  %  dwell  somewhere  far  off,  beyond 
the  seas.  The  Tartars,  during  their  inroads,  used  to  burn 
towns  and  villages,  kill  old  folks  and  infants,  and  carry  off 
young  people.  The  plumpest  of  these  they  used  to  sell 
to  cannibals  who  had  but  one  eye  apiece,  situated  in 
the  forehead.  And  the  cannibals  would  drive  away  their 
purchases,  like  sheep,  to  their  own  land,  and  there  fatten 
them  up,  kill  them,  and  eat  them.  A  similar  tradition,  says 
Afanasief  (VIII.  260)  exists  also  among  the  Ural  Cossacks. 

While  on  the  subject  of  eyes,  it  may  be  remarked  that 
the  story  of  "  One-Eye,  Two-Eyes,  and  Three-Eyes,"  ren- 
dered so  familiar  to  juvenile  English  readers  by  translations 

*  "  Les  Avadanas,"  vol.  i.  No.  9,  p.  51. 

t  In  the  "  Philogische  und  historische  Abhandlungen,"  of  the  Ber'in  Academy  of 
Sciences  for  1S57,  pp.  1-30.  See  also  Buslaef,  "  1st.  Och.,"  i.  327-331.  ;  Campbell's 
"West  Highland  Tales,"  i.  p.  132,  &c. 

%  Ednookie  (edno  or  odno  =one  ;  oko  =  eye).  A  Slavonic  equivalent  of  the  name 
"  Arimaspians,"  from  the  Scythic  arima=one  and  spii=eye.  Mr.  Rawlinson 
associates  arima,  through  farima,  with  Goth,  /nana,  Lat.  primus,  &c,  and  spu 
with  Lat.  root  spic  or  spec — in  specio,  sjecto,  &c,  and  with  our  "  spy,"  &C. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  191 

from  the  German,*  appears  among  the  Russian  tales  in  a 
very  archaic  and  heathenish  form.  Here  is  the  outline  of  a 
version  of  it  found  in  the  Archangel  Government. f  There 
once  was  a  Princess  Marya,  whose  stepmother  had  two 
daughters,  one  of  whom  was  three-eyed.  Now  her  step- 
mother hated  Marya,  and  used  to  send  her  out,  with  nothing 
to  eat  but  a  dry  crust,  to  tend  a  cow  all  day.  But  "  the 
princess  went  into  the  open  field,  bowed  down  before  the 
cow's  right  foot,  and  got  plenty  to  eat  and  to  drink,  and  fine 
clothes  to  put  on  ;  all  day  long  she  followed  the  cow  about 
dressed  like  a  great  lady — when  the  day  came  to  a  close,  she 
again  bowed  down  to  the  cow's  right  foot,  took  off  her  fine 
clothes,  went  home  and  laid  on  the  table  the  crust  of  bread 
she  had  brought  back  with  her."  Wondering  at  this,  her 
stepmother  sent  her  two-eyed  stepsister  to  watch  her.  But 
Marya  uttered  the  words  "  Sleep,  sleep,  one-eye  !  sleep, 
sleep,  other  eye  ! "  till  the  watcher  fell  asleep.  Then  the 
three-eyed  sister  was  sent,  and  Marya  by  the  same  spell 
sent  two  of  her  eyes  to  sleep,  but  forgot  the  third.  So 
all  was  found  out,  and  the  stepmother  had  the  cow  killed. 
But  Marya  persuaded  her  father,  who  acted  as  the  butcher, 
to  give  her  a  part  of  the  cow's  entrails,  which  she  buried 
near  the  threshold  \  and  from  it  there  sprang  a  bush 
covered  with  berries,  and  haunted  by  birds  which  sang 
"  songs  royal  and  rustic."  After  a  time  a  Prince  Ivan  heard 
of  Marya,  so  he  came  riding  up,  and  offered  to  marry 
whichever  of  the  three  princesses  could  fill  with  berries  from 
the  bush  a  bowl  which  he  brought  with  him.  The  step- 
mother's daughters  tried  to  do  so,  but  the  birds  almost 
pecked  their  eyes  out,  and  would  not  let  them  gather  the 
berries.  Then  Marya's  turn  came,  and  when  she  ap- 
proached the  bush  the  birds  picked  the  berries  for  her. 

*  Grimm,  No.  130,  &c.  t  Afanasief,  vi.  No.  55. 


192  RUSSJAi\  FOLK-TALES. 

and  filled  the  bowl  in  a  trice.     So  she  married  the  prince, 
and  lived  happily  with  him  for  a  time. 

But  after  she  had  borne  him  a  son,  she  went  to  pay  a 
visit  to  herfather,  and  her  stepmother  availed  herself  of  the 
opportunity  to  turn  her  into  a  goose,  and  to  set  her  own 
two-eyed  daughter  in  her  place.  So  Prince  Ivan  returned 
home  with  a  false  bride.  But  a  certain  old  man  took  out 
the  infant  prince  afield,  and  there  his  mother  appeared, 
flung  aside  her  feather-covering,  and  suckled  the  babe,  ex- 
daiming  the  while  with  tears — 

"  To-day  I  suckle  thee,  to-morrow  I  shall  suckle  thee, 
but  on  the  third  day  I  shall  fly  away  beyond  the  dark 
forests,  beyond  the  high  mountains  !  " 

This  occurred  on  two  successive  days,  but  on  the  second 
occasion  Prince  Ivan  was  a  witness  of  what  took  place, 
and  he  seized  her  feather-dress  and  burnt  it,  and  then  laid 
hold  of  her.  She  first  turned  into  a  frog,  then  assumed 
various  reptile  forms,  and  finally  became  a  spindle.  This 
he  broke  in  two,  and  flung  one  half  in  front  and  the  other 
behind  him,  and  the  spell  was  broken  along  with  it.  So  he 
regained  his  wife  and  went  home  with  her.  But  as  for  the 
false  wife,  he  took  a  gun  and  shot  her. 

We  will  now  return  to  the  stories  in  which  Harm  or 
Misery  figures  as  a  living  agent.  To  Likho  is  always  attri- 
buted a  character  of  unmitigated  malevolence,  and  a  similar 
disposition  is  ascribed  by  the  songs  of  the  people  to  another 
being  'n  whom  the  idea  of  misfortune  is  personified.  This 
is  Gort,  or  Woe,  who  is  frequently  represented  in  popular 
poetry — sometimes  under  the  name  of  Beda  or  Misery — as 
chasing  and  ultimately  destroying  the  unhappy  victims  of 
destiny,  In  vain  do  the  fugitives  attempt  to  escape.  If 
they  enter  the  dark  forest,  Woe  follows  them  there  ;  if  they 
rush  to  the  pothouse,  there  they  find  Woe  sitting;  when 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  193 

they  seek  refuge  in  the  grave,  Woe  stands  over  it  with  a 
shovel  and  rejoices.*  In  the  following  story,  however,  the 
gloomy  figure  of  Woe  has  been  painted  in  a  less  than 
usually  sombre  tone. 

WOE.f 

In  a  certain  village  there  lived  two  peasants,  two  brothers  :  one 
of  them  poor,  the  other  rich.  The  rich  one  went  away  to  live 
in  a  town,  built  himself  a  large  house,  and  enrolled  himself 
among  the  traders.  Meanwhile  the  poor  man  sometimes  had 
not  so  much  as  a  morsel  of  bread,  and  his  children — each  one 
smaller  than  the  other — were  crying  and  begging  for  food. 
From  morning  till  night  the  peasant  would  struggle,  like  a  fish 
trying  to  break  through  ice,  but  nothing  came  of  it  all.  At  last 
one  day  he  said  to  his  wife : 

"  Suppose  I  go  to  town,  and  ask  my  brother  whether  he  won't 
do  something  to  help  us." 

So  he  went  to  the  rich  man  and  said  : 

"  Ah,  brother  mine  !  do  help  me  a  bit  in  my  trouble.  My 
wife  and  children  are  without  bread.  They  have  to  go  whole 
days  without  eating." 

"Work  for  me  this  week,  then  I'll  help  you,"  said  his  brother. 

What  was  there  to  be  done  !  The  poor  man  betook  himself 
to  work,  swept  out  the  yard,  cleaned  the  horses,  fetched  water, 
chopped  firewood. 

At  the  end  of  the  week  the  rich  man  gave  him  a  loaf  of  bread, 
and  says  : 

"  There's  for  your  work  !  " 

"  Thank  you  all  the  same,"  dolefully  said  the  poor  man, 
making  his  bow  and  preparing  to  go  home. 

"Stop  a  bit!  come  and  dine  with  me  to-morrow,  and  bring 
your  wife,  too:  to-morrow  is  my  name-day,  you  know." 

"Ah,   brother!     how  can   I?    you  know  very  well  you'U 

*  See  the  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People."  p.  30. 

t  Afanasief,  v.  No.  34.     From  the  Novgorod  Government. 

•3 


194  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

be  having  merchants  coming  to  you  in  boots  and  pelisses^, 
but  I  have  to  go  about  in  bast  shoes  and  a  miserable  old  grey 
caftan." 

"  No  matter,  come  !  there  will  be  room  even  for  you." 

"Very  well,  brother  !  I'll  come." 

The  poor  man  returned  home,  gave  his  wife  the  loaf,  and 
said: 

"  Listen,  wife  !  we're  invited  to  a  party  to-morrow." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  a  party  ?  who's  invited  us  ?  " 

"  My  brother !  he  keeps  his  name-day  to-morrow." 

"  Well,  well !  let's  go." 

Next  day  they  got  up  and  went  to  the  town,  came  to  the  rich 
man's  house,  offered  him  their  congratulations,  and  sat  down  on 
a  bench.  A  number  of  the  name-day  guests  were  already  seated 
at  table.  All  of  these  the  host  feasted  gloriously,  but  he  forgot 
even  so  much  as  to  think  of  his  poor  brother  and  his  wife;  not 
a  thing  did  he  offer  them  ;  they  had  to  sit  and  merely  look  on 
at  the  others  eating  and  drinking. 

The  dinner  came  to  an  end  ;  the  guests  rose  from  table, 
and  expressed  their  thanks  to  their  host  and  hostess  ;  and  the 
poor  man  did  likewise,  got  up  from  his  bench,  and  bowed  down 
to  his  girdle  before  his  brother.  The  guests  drove  off  home- 
wards, full  of  drink  and  merriment,  shouting,  singing  songs.  But 
the  poor  man  had  to  walk  back  empty. 

"  Suppose  we  sing  a  song,  too,"  he  says  to  his  wife. 

"What  a  fool  you  are!"  says  she,  "people  sing'  became 
they've  made  a  good  meal  and  had  lots  to  drink  ;  but  why  ever 
should  you  dream  of  singing  ?  " 

"  Well,  at  all  events,  I've  been  at  my  brother's  name-day 
party.  I'm  ashamed  of  trudging  along  without  singing.  If  I 
sing,  everybody  will  think  I've  been  feasted  like  the  rest." 

"  Sing  away,  then,  if  you  like ;  but  I  won't !  " 

The  peasant  began  a  song.  Presently  he  heard  a  voice 
joining  in  it.     So  he  stopped,  and  asked  his  wife : 

"  Is  it  you  that's  helping  me  to  sing  with  that  thin  little 
voice  ? " 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  193 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about !  1  never  even  dreamt  of 
such  a  thing." 

"  Who  is  it,  then  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  woman.  "  But  now,  sing  away, 
and  I'll  listen." 

He  began  his  song  again.  There  was  only  one  person  sing- 
ing, yet  two  voices  could  be  heard.     So  he  stopped,  and  asked  : 

"  Woe,  is  that  you  that's  helping  me  to  sing  ?  " 

"  Yes,  master,"  answered  Woe :  "  it's  I  that's  helping  you." 

"  Well  then,  Woe  !  let's  all  go  on  together." 

"Very  good,  master  !  I'll  never  depart  from  you  now." 

When  the  peasant  got  home,  Woe  bid  him  to  the  kabak  or 
pot-house. 

"  I've  no  money,"  says  the  man. 

"  Out  upon  you,  moujik  !  What  do  you  want  money  for  ?  why 
you've  got  on  a  sheep-skin  jacket.  What's  the  good  of  that  ?  It 
will  soon  be  summer  ;  anyhow  you  won't  be  wanting  to  wear  it ! 
Off  with  the  jacket,  and  to  the  pot-house  we'll  go." 

So  the  peasant  went  with  Woe  into  the  pot-house,  and  they 
drank  the  sheep-skin  away. 

The  next  day  Woe  began  groaning — its  head  ached  from 
yesterday's  drinking — and  again  bade  the  master  of  the  house 
have  a  drink. 

"  I've  no  money,"  said  the  peasant. 

"  What  do  we  want  money  for  ?  Take  the  cart  and  the 
sledge  ;  we've  plenty  without  them." 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done ;  the  peasant  could  not  shake 
himself  free  from  Woe.  So  he  took  the  cart  and  the  sledge, 
dragged  them  to  the  pot-house,  and  there  he  and  Woe  drank  them 
away.  Next  morning  Woe  began  groaning  more  than  ever,  and 
invited  the  master  of  the  house  to  go  and  drink  off  the  effects 
of  the  debauch.  This  time  the  peasant  drank  away  his  plough 
and  his  harrow. 

A  month  hadn't  passed  before  he  had  got  rid  of  everything 
he  possessed.  Even  his  very  cottage  he  pledged  to  a  neighbor, 
and  the  money  he  got  that  way  he  took  to  the  pot-house. 


196  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Yet  another  time  did  Woe  come  close  beside;-him  and  say : 

"  Let  us  go,  let  us  go  to  the  pot-house !  " 

"  No,  no,  Woe  !  it's  all  very  well,  but  there's  nothing  more 
to  be  squeezed  out." 

"  How  can  you  say  that  ?  Your  wife  has  got  two  petticoats  : 
.eave  her  one,  but  the  other  we  must  turn  into  drink." 

The  peasant  took  the  petticoat,  drank  it  away,  and  said  to 
himself : 

"  We're  cleaned  out  at  last,  my  wife  as  well  as  myself.  Not 
a  stick  nor  a  stone  is  left !  " 

Next  morning  Woe,  saw,  on  waking,  that  there  was  nothing 
more  to  be  got  out  of  the  peasant,  so  it  said  : 

"  Master ! " 

"  Well,  Woe  ?  " 

"  Why,  look  here.  (  Go  to  your  neighbor,  and  ask  him  to 
lend  you  a  cart  and  a  pair  of  oxen." 

The  peasant  went  to  the  neighbor's. 

"  Be  so  good  as  to  lend  me  a  cart  and  a  pair  of  oxen  for  a 
short  time,"  says  he.     "  I'll  do  a  week's  work  for  you  in  return  " 

"  But  what  do  you  want  them  for  ?  " 

"  To  go  to  the  forest  for  firewood." 

"  Well  then,  take  them  ;  only  don't  overburthen  them." 

"  How  could  you  think  of  such  a  thing,  kind  friend  !  " 

So  he  brought  the  pair  of  oxen,  and  Woe  got  into  the  cart 
with  him,  and  away  he  drove  into  the  open  plain. 

"  Master  !  "  asks  Woe,  "  do  you  know  the  big  stone  on  this 
plain  ? " 

"  Of  course  I  do." 

"  Well  then  if  you  know  it,  drive  straight  up  to  it." 

They  came  to  the  place  where  it  was,  stopped,  and  got  out 
of  the  cart.  Woe  told  the  peasant  to  lift  the  stone  ;  the  peasant 
lifted  it,  Woe  helping  him.  Well,  when  they  had  lifted  it  there 
was  a  pit  underneath  chock  full  of  gold. 

"  Now  then,  what  are  you  staring  at ! "  said  Woe  to  the 
peasant,  "be  quick  and  pitch  it  into  the  cart." 

The   peasant   set  to  work  and  filled  the   cart  with   gold; 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  197 

cleared  the  pit  to  the  very  last  ducat.  When  he  saw  there  was 
nothing  more  left : 

"Just  give  a  hook,  Woe,"  he  said;  "isn't  there  some  money 
left  in  there  ?  " 

"  Where  ? "  said  Woe,  bending  down  ;  "  I  can't  see  a  thing." 

"Why  there  ;  something  is  shining  in  yon  corner  ! " 

"  No,  I  can't  see  anything,"  said  Woe. 

"  Get  into  the  pit  ;  you'll  see  it  then." 

Woe  jumped  in  :  no  sooner  had  it  got  there  than  the  peas- 
ant closed  the  mouth  of  the  pit  with  the  stone. 

"  Things  will  be  much  better  like  that,"  said  the  peasant : 
"  if  I  were  to  take  you  home  with  me,  О  Woeful  Woe,  sooner 
or  later  you'd  be  sure  to  drink  away  all  this  money,  too  !  " 

The  peasant  got  home,  shovelled  the  money  into  his  cellar, 
took  the  oxen  back  to  his  neighbor,  and  set  about  considering 
how  he  should  manage.  It  ended  in  his  buying  a  wood,  build- 
ing a  large  homestead,  and  becoming  twice  as  rich  as  his 
brother. 

After  a  time  he  went  into  the  town  to  invite  his  brother  and 
sister-in-law  to  spend  his  name-day  with  him. 

"What  an  idea!"  said  his  rich  brother:  "you  haven't  a 
thing  to  eat,  and  yet  you  ask  people  to  spend  your  name-day 
with  you ! " 

"  Well,  there  was  a  time  when  I  had  nothing  to  eat,  but 
now,  thank  God  !  I've  as  much  as  you.  If  you  come,  you'll  see 
for  yourself." 

"  So  be  it !  I'll  come,"  said  his  brother. 

Next  day  the  rich  brother  and  his  wife  got  ready,  and  went 
to  the  name-day  party.  They  could  see  that  the  former  beggar 
had  got  a  new  house,  a  lofty  one,  such  as  few  merchants  had  ! 
And  the  moujik  treated  them  hospitably,  regaled  them  with  all 
sorts  of  dishes,  gave  them  all  sorts  of  meads  and  spirits  to 
drink.     At  length  the  rich  man  asked  his  brother : 

"  Do  tell  me  by  what  good  luck  have  you  grown  rich  ?  " 

The  peasant  made  a  clean  breast  of  everything — how  Woe 
the  Woeful  had  attached  itself  to   him,  how  he  and  Woe  bad 


198  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

drunk  away  all  that  he  had,  to  the  very  last  thread,  so  that  the 
only  thing  that  was  left  him  was  the  soul  in  his  body.  How 
Woe  showed  him  a  treasure  in  the  open  field,  how  he  took  that 
treasure,  and  freed  himself  from  Woe  into  the  bargain.  The 
rich  man  became  envious. 

"  Suppose  I  go  to  the  open  field,"  thinks  he,  "  and  lift  up  the 
stone  and  let  Woe  out.  Of  a  surety  it  will  utterly  destroy  my 
brother,  and  then  he  will  no  longer  brag  of  his  riches  before  me  !  " 

So  he  sent  his  wife  home,  but  he  himself  hastened  into  the 
plain.  When  he  came  to  the  big  stone,  he  pushed  it  aside,  and 
knelt  down  to  see  what  was  under  it.  Before  he  had  managed 
to  get  his  head  down  low  enough,  Woe  had  already  leapt  out 
and  seated  itself  on  his  shoulders. 

"  Ha ! "  it  cried,  "  you  wanted  to  starve  me  to  death  in  here ! 
No,  no  !     Now  will  I  never  on  any  account  depart  from  you." 

"  Only  hear  me,  Woe  !  "  said  the  merchant :  "  it  wasn't  I  at 
all  who  put  you  under  the  stone." 

"  Who  was  it  then,  if  it  wasn't  you  ?  " 

"  It  was  my  brother  put  you  there,  but  I  came  on  purpose  to 
let  you  out." 

"  No,  no  !  that's  a  lie.  You  tricked  me  once  ;  you  shan't 
trick  me  a  second  time  !  " 

Woe  gripped  the  rich  merchant  tight  by  the  neck  ;  the  man 
had  to  carry  it  home,  and  there  everything  began  to  go  wrong 
with  him.  From  the  very  first  day  Woe  began  again  to  play 
its  usual  part,  every  day  it  called  on  the  merchant  to  renew  his 
drinking.*  Many  were  the  valuables  which  went  in  the  pot- 
house. 

"  Impossible  to  go  on  living  like  this  !  "  says  the  merchant  to 
himself.  "  Surely  I've  made  sport  enough  for  Woe  !  It's  time 
to  get  rid  o/it — but  how  ?  " 

He  thought  and  thought,  and  hit  on  an  idea.  Going  into  the 
large  yard,  he  cut  two  oaken  wedges,  took  a  new  wheel,  and 
drove  a  wedge  firmly  into  one  end  of  its  axle-box.  Then  he 
went  to  where  Woe  was  : 

*  Opolkmyeli?  sya  :  "  to  drink  off  the  effects  of  bis  debauch." 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  199 

"  Hallo,  Woe  !  why  are  you  always  idly  sprawling  there  ? " 

"  Why,  what  is  there  left  for  me  to  do  ?  " 

"  What  is  there  to  do !  let's  go  into  the  yard  and  play  at 
hide-and-seek." 

Woe  liked  the  idea.  Out  they  went  into  the  yard.  First 
the  merchant  hid  himself  ;  Woe  found  him  immediately.  Then 
it  was  Woe's  turn  to  hide. 

"Now  then,"  says  Woe,  "you  won't  find  me  in  a  hurry! 
There  isn't  a  chink  I  can't  get  into  !  " 

"  Get  along  with  you  !  "  answered  the  merchant.  "  Why  you 
couldn't  creep  into  that  wheel  there,  and  yet  you  talk  about 
chinks ! " 

"  I  can't  creep  into  that  wheel  ?  See  if  I  don't  go  clean  out 
of  sight  in  it !  " 

Woe  slipped  into  the  wheel ;  the  merchant  caught  up  the 
oaken  wedge,  and  drove  it  into  the  axle-box  from  the  other 
side.  Then  he  seized  the  wheel  and  flung  it,  with  Woe  in  it, 
into  the  river.  Woe  was  drowned,  and  the  merchant  began  to 
live  again  as  he  had  been  wont  to  do  of  old. 

In  a  variant  of  this  story  found  in  the  Tula  Govern- 
ment we  have,  in  the  place  of  woe,  Nuzhda,  or  Need.  The 
poor  brother  and  his  wife  are  returning  home  disconso- 
lately from  a  party  given  by  the  rich  brother  in  honor 
of  his  son's  marriage.  But  a  draught  of  water  which 
they  take  by  the  way  gets  into  their  heads,  and  they  set 
up  a  song. 

"  There  are  two  of  them  singing  (says  the  story),  but 
three  voices  prolong  the  strain. 
"  '  Whoever  is  that  ? '  say  they. 

"  '  Thy  Need,'  answers  some  one  or  other. 

"  '  What,  my  good  mother  Need  !  '  " 

"  So  saying  the  man  laid  hold  of  her,  and  took  her  down 
from  his  shoulders — for  she  was  sitting  on  them.  And  he 
found  a  horse's  head  and  put  her  inside  it,  and  flung  it  into 


200  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

a  swamp.      And  afterwards  he  began  to  lead  a  new  life — 
impossible  to  live  more  prosperously." 

Of  course  the  rich  brother  becomes  envious  and  takes 
Need  out  of  the  swamp,  whereupon  she  clings  to  him  so 
tightly  that  he  cannot  get  rid  of  her,  and  he  becomes 
utterly  ruined.* 

In  another  story,  from  the  Viatka  Government,  the  poor 
man  is  invited  to  a  house-warming  at  his  rich  brother's, 
but  he  has  no  present  to  take  with  him. 

"  We  might  borrow,  but  who  would  trust  us  ? "  says  he. 
"  Why  there's  Need ! "  replies  his  wife  with  a  bitter 
laugh.     "  Perhaps  she'll  make  us  a  present.     Surely  we've 
lived  on  friendly  terms  with  her  for  an  age  !  " 

"  Take  the  feast-day  sarafan,"  f  cries  Need  from  be- 
hind the  stove  \  "  and  with  the  money  you  get  for  it  buy  a 
ham  and  take  it  to  your  brother's." 

"  Have  you  been  living  here  long,  Need  ? "  asks  the 
moujik. 

"Yes,  ever  since  you  and  your  brother  separated." 
"  And  have  you  been  comfortable  here  ?  " 
u  Thanks  be  to  God,  I  get  on  tolerably  ! " 
The  moujik  follows  the  advice  of  Need,  but  meets  with 
a  cold  reception  at  his  brother's.     On  returning  sadly  home 
he  finds  a  horse  standing  by  the  road  side,  with  a  couple  of 
bags  slung  across  its  back.     He  strikes  it  with  his  glove, 
and  it  disappears,  leaving  behind  it  the  bags,  which  turn 
out  to  be  full  of  gold.     This  he  gathers  up,  and  then  goes 
indoors.     After  finding  out  from  his  wife  where  she  has 
taken  up  her  quarters  for  the  night,  he  says  : 
"  And  where  are  you,  Need  ? " 
"In  the  pitcher  which  stands  on  the  stove." 

•  Erlenvein,  No.  n,  t  Our  "  Sunday  gown." 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  2Э1 

After  a  time  the  moujik  asks  his  wife  if  she  is  asleep. 
"Not  yet,"  she  replies.  Then  he  puts  the  same  question  to 
Need,  who  gives  no  answer,  having  gone  to  sleep.  So 
he  takes  his  wife's  last  sarafan,  wraps  up  the  pitcher  in  it, 
and  flings  the  bundle  into  an  ice-hole.* 

In  one  of  the  "  chap-book  "  stories  (a  lubochnaya  skazka), 
2l  poor  man  "  obtained  a  crust  of  bread  and  took  it  home  to 
provide  his  wife  and  boy  with  a  meal,  but  just  as  he  was 
beginning  to  cut  it,  suddenly  out  from  behind  the  stove 
jumped  Kruchina,  f  snatched  the  crust  from  his  hands,  and 
fled  back  again  behind  the  stove.  Then  the  old  man 
began  to  bow  down  before  Kruchina  and  to  beseech  him  $ 
to  give  back  the  bread,  seeing  that  he  and  his  had  nothing 
to  eat.  Thereupon  Kruchina  replied,  "  I  will  not  give  you 
back  your  crust,  but  in  return  for  it  I  will  make  you  a 
present  of  a  duck  which  will  Jay  a  golden  egg  every  day," 
and  kept  his  word.§ 

In  Little-Russia  the  peasantry  believe  in  the  existence 
of  small  beings,  of  vaguely  defined  form,  called  Zluidni^ 
who  bring  zlo  or  evil  to  every  habitation  in  which  they 
take  up  their  quarters.  "  May  the  Zluidni  strike  him  !  "  is 
a  Little- Russian  curse,  and  "  The  Zluidni  have  got  leave  for 
three  days ;  not  in  three  years  will  you  get  rid  of  them  !  " 
is  a  White-Russian  proverb.  In  a  Little-Russian  skazka  a 
poor  man  catches  a  fish  and  takes  it  as  a  present  to  his  rich 
brother,  who  says,  "  A  splendid  fish  !  thank  you,  brother, 
thank  you !  "  but  evinces  no  other  sign  of  gratitude.  On 
his  way  home  the  poor  man  meets  an  old  stranger  and  tells 


*  Aianasief,  viii.  p.  408. 

t  Properly  speaking  "  grief,"  that  which  morally  kntshH  or  crushes  a  man. 
X  Кгж/iina,  as  an  abstract  idea,  is  of  the  feminine  gender.     But  it  ;s  here  person* 
fiel  as  a  male  being. 
§  Afanasief,  v.  p.  237. 


202  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

him  his  story  —how  he  hard  taken  his  brother  a  fish  and 
had  got  nothing  in  return  but  a  "  thank  ye." 

"  How  !  "  cries  the  old  man.  "  A  spasibo  *  is  no  small 
thing.     Sell  it  to  me  !  " 

"  How  can  one  sell  it?  "  replies  the  moujik.  "  Take  it 
pray,  as  a  present !  " 

"  So  the  spasibo  is  mine !  "  says  the  old  man,  and  dis- 
appears, leaving  in  the  peasant's  hands  a  purse  full  of 
gold. 

The  peasant  grows  rich,  and  moves  into  another  house. 
After  a  time  his  wife  says  to  him — 

"  We've  been  wrong,  Ivan,  in  leaving  our  mill-stones  in 
the  old  house.  They  nourished  us,  you  see,  when  we  were 
poor  ;  but  now,  when  they're  no  longer  necessary  to  us, 
we've  quite  forgotten  them  !  " 

"  Right  you  are,"  replies  Ivan,  and  sets  off  to  fetch  them. 
When  he  reaches  his  old  dwelling,  he  hears  a  voice  saying — 

"  A  bad  fellow,  that  Ivan !  now  he's  rich,  he's  abandoned 
us!" 

"Who  are  you?"  asks  Ivan.  "I  don't  know  you  a 
bit." 

"  Not  know  us !  you've  forgotten  our  faithful  service, 
it  seems  !     Why,  we're  your  Zluidni !  " 

"  God  be  with  you  !  "  says  he.     "  I  don't  want  you  ! " 

"  No,  no  !  we  will  never  part  from  you  now  ! " 

"  Wait  a  bit !  "  thinks  Ivan,  and  then  continues  aloud, 
"  Very  good,  I'll  take  you  ;  but  only  on  condition  that  you 
bring  home  my  mill-stones  for  me." 

So  he  laid  the  mill-stones  on  their  backs,  and  made 
them  go  on  in  front  of  him.  ч  They  all  had  to  pass  along 

•  Spasibo  is  the  word  in  popular  use  as  an  expression  of  thanks,  and  it  now  means 
nothing  more  than  "thank  you  !  "  But  it  is  really  a  contraction  of  spasi  Bog  !  "  God 
save  (you) !  "  as  our  "Good-bye  !  "  is  of  "  God  be  with  you  !  " 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  203 

a  bridge  over  a  deep  river  ;  the  moujik  managed  to  give 
the  Zluidni  a  shove,  and  over  they  went,  mill-stones  and 
all,  and  sank  straight  to  the  bottom.* 

There  is  a  very  curious  Servian  story  of  two  brothers, 
one  of  whom  is  industrious  and  unlucky,  and  the  other 
idle  and  prosperous.  The  poor  brother  one  day  sees  a 
flock  of  sheep,  and  near  them  a  fair  maiden  spinning  a 
golden  thread. 

"  Whose  sheep  are  these  ?  "  he  asks. 

"  The  sheep  are  his  whose  I  myself  am,"  she  replies. 

"And  whose  art  thou  ?  "  he  asks. 

"  I  am  thv  brother's  Luck,"  she  answers. 

"  But  where  is  my  Luck  ?  "  he  continues. 

"  Far  away  from  thee  is  thy  Luck,"  she  replies. 

"But  can  I  find  her  ?  "  he  asks. 

"  Thou  canst ;  go  and  seek  her,"  she  replies. 

So  the  poor  man  wanders  away  in  search  of  her.  One 
day  he  sees  a  grey-haired  old  woman  asleep  under  an  oak 
in  a  great  forest,  who  proves  to  be  his  Luck.  He  asks 
who  it  is  that  has  given  him  such  a  poor  Luck,  and  is  told 
that  it  is  Fate.  So  he  goes  in  search  of  Fate.  When  he 
finds  her,  she  is  living  at  ease  in  a  large  house,  but  day 
by  day  her  riches  wane  and  her  house  contracts.  She 
explains  to  her  visitor  that  her  condition  at  any  given  hour 
affects  the  whole  lives  of  all  children  born  at  that  time, 
and  that  he  had  come  into  the  world  at  a  most  unpropitious 
moment ;  and  she  advises  him  to  take  his  niece  Militsa 
(who  had  been  born  at  a  lucky  time)  to  live  in  his  house, 
and  to  call  all  he  might  acquire  her  property.  This  advice 
he  follows,  and  all  goes  well  with  him.  One  day,  as  he  is 
gazing  at  a  splendid  field  of  corn,  a  stranger  asks  him  to 
whom  it  belongs.     In  a  forgetful  moment  he  replies,  "  It 

*  Maksimovicli,  "  Tri  Skazki  "  (quoted  by  Afanasief.  viii.  p.  цоб). 


204  К  USSIA  N  FOLK-  TALES. 

is  mine,"  and  immediately  the  whole  crop  begins  to  burn. 
He  runs  after  the  stranger  and  cries,  "  Stop,  brother  !  that 
field  isn't  mine,  but  my  niece  Militsa's,"  whereupon  the 
fire  goes  out  and  the  crop  is  saved.* 

On  this  idea  of  a  personal  Fortune  is  founded  the 
quaint  opening  of  one  of  the  Russian  stories.  A  certain 
peasant,  known  as  Ivan  the  Unlucky,  in  despair  at  his 
constant  want  of  success,  goes  to  the  king  for  advice. 
The  king  lays  the  matter  before  "  his  nobles  and  generals," 
but  they  can  make  nothing  of  it.  At  last  the  king's 
daughter  enters  the  council  chamber  and  says,  "  This  is 
my  opinion,  my  father.  If  he  were  to  be  married,  the 
Lord  might  allot  him  another  sort  of  Fortune."  The  king 
flies  into  a  passion  and  exclaims : 

"  Since  you've  settled  the  question  better  than  all  of 
us,  go  and  marry  him  yourself  !  " 

The  marriage  takes  place,  and  brings  Ivan  good  luck 
along  with  it-T 

Similar  references  to  a  man's  good  or  bad  luck  fre- 
quently occur  in  the  skazkas.  Thus  in  one  of  them  (from 
the  Grodno  Government)  a  poor  man  meets  "  two  ladies 
(pannui),  and  those  ladies  are — the  one  Fortune  and  the 
other  Misfortune."  X  He  tells  them  how  poor  he  is,  and 
they  agree  that  it  will  be  well  to  bestow  something  on  him. 
"  Since  he  is"  one  of  yours,"  says  Luck,  "  do  you  make 
him  a  present.  At  length  they  take  out  ten  roubles  and 
give  them  to  him.  He  hides  the  money  in  a  pot,  and  his 
wife  gives  it  away  to  a  neighbor.  Again  they  assist  him, 
giving  him  twenty  roubles,  and  again  his  wife  gives  them 
away  unwittingly.     Then  the  ladies  bestow  on  him  two 

•  Vuk  Karajich,  No.  13.  t  Afanasief,  viii.  No.  21. 

t  Schastie  and  Neschastie — Luck  and  Bad-luck — the  exact  counterparts  of  the 
Indian  Lakshmf  and  Alakshmf. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  205 

farthings  (groshi),  telling  him  to  give  them  to  fishermen,  and 
bid  them  make  a  cast  "  for  his  luck."  He  obeys,  and  the 
result  is  the  capture  of  a  fish  which  brings  him  in  wealth.* 

In  another  story  f  a  young  man,  the  son  of  a  wealthy 
merchant,  is  so  unlucky  that  nothing  will  prosper  with  him. 
Having  lost  all  that  his  father  has  left  him,  he  hires  himself 
out,  first  as  a  laborer,  then  as  a  herdsman.  But  as,  in 
each  capacity,  he  involves  his  masters  in  heavy  losses,  he 
soon  finds  himself  without  employment.  Then  he  tries 
another  country,  in  which  the  king  gives  him  a  post  as  a 
sort  of  stoker  in  the  royal  distillery,  which  he  soon  all  but 
burns  down.  The  king  is  at  first  bent  upon  punishing 
him,  but  pardons  him  after  hearing  his  sad  tale.  "  He 
bestowed  on  him  the  name  of  Luckless, %  and  gave  orders 
that  a  stamp  should  be  set  on  his  forehead,  that  no  tolls 
or  taxes  should  be  demanded  from  him,  and  that  wherever 
he  appeared  he  should  be  given  free  board  and  lodging, 
but  that  he  slfould  never  be  allowed  to  stop  more  than 
twenty-four  hours  in  any  one  place."  These  orders  are 
obeyed,  and  wherever  Luckless  goes,  "  nobody  ever  asks 
him  for  his  billet  or  his  passport,  but  they  give  him  food 
to  eat,  and  liquor  to  drink,  and  a  place  to  spend  the  night 
in;  and  next  morning  they  take  him  by  the  scruff  of  the 
neck  and  turn  him  out  of  doors."  § 

*  Afanasief,  iii.  No.  9.  t  Afanasief  viii.  pp.  32-4. 

X  Bezdolny  (bez  =  without  ;  dofya  =  lot,  share,  etc.). 

§  Everyone  knows  how  frequent  are  the  allusions  to  good  and  bad  fortune  in 
Oriental  fiction,  so  that  there  is  no  occasion  to  do  more  than  allude  to  the  stories  in 
whiJi  they  occur — one  of  the  most  interesting  of  which  is  that  of  Vfra-vara  in  the 
"  Hitopadesa  "  (chap.  iii.  Fable  9),  who  finds  one  night  a  young  and  beautiful  woman, 
richly  decked  with  jewels,  weeping  outside  the  city  in  which  dwells  his  royal  master 
Sudraka,  and  asks  her  who  she  is,  and  why  she  weeps.  To  which  (in  Mr.  Johnson's 
translation)  she  replies  "  I  am  the  Fortune  of  this  King  Sudraka,  beneath  the  shadow 
of  whose  arm  I  have  long  reposed  very  happily.  Through  the  fault  of  the  queen  tie 
king  will  die  on  the  third  day.  I  shall  be  without  a  protector,  and  shall  stay  no 
longer ;  therefore  do  I  weep."  On  the  variants  of  this  story,  see  Benfey's  "  Pan- 
chatautra,"  i.  pp.  415-16. 


20G  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

We  will  now  turn  from  the  forms  under  which  popular 
fiction  has  embodied  some  of  the  ideas  connected  with 
Fortune  and  Misfortune,  to  another  strange  group  of  figures 
— the  personifications  of  certain  days  of  the  week.  Of 
these,  by  far  the  most  important  is  that  of  Friday. 

The  Russian  name  for  that  day,  Pyatnitsa*  has  no 
such  mythological  significance  as  have  our  own  Friday  and 
the  French  Vendredi.  But  the  day  was  undoubtedly  conse- 
crated by  the  old  Slavonians  to  some  goddess  akin  to 
Venus  or  Freyja,  and  her  worship  in  ancient  times  accounts 
for  the  superstitions  now  connected  with  the  name  of 
Friday.  According  to  Afanasief,|  the  Carinthian  name 
for  the  day,  Sibne  dan,  is  a  clear  proof  that  it  was  once 
holy  to  Siva,  the  Lithuanian  Seewa,  the  Slavonic  goddess 
answering  to  Ceres.  In  Christian  times  the  personality  of 
the  goddess  (by  whatever  name  she  may  have  been  known) 
to  whom  Friday  was  consecrated  became  merged  in  that 
of  St.  Prascovia,  and  she  is  now  frequently  addressed  by 
the  compound  name  of  "  Mother  Pyatnitsa-Prascovia." 
As  she  is  supposed  to  wander  about  the  houses  of  the 
peasants  on  her  holy  day,  and  to  be  offended  if  she  finds 
certain  kinds  of  work  going  on,  they  are  (or  at  least  they 
used  to  be)  frequently  suspended  on  Fridays.  It  is  a  sin, 
says  a  time-honored  tradition,  for  a  woman  to  sew,  or  spin, 
or  weave,  or  buck  linen  on  a  Friday,  and  similarly  for  a 
man  to  plait  bast  shoes,  twine  cord,  and  the  like.  Spin- 
ning and  weaving  are  especially  obnoxious  to  "  Mother 
Friday,"  for  the  dust  and  refuse  thus  produced  injure  her 
eyes.  When  this  takes  place,  she  revenges  herself  by 
plagues   of    sore-eyes,   whitlows    and   agnails.     In    some 

*  From  fiyat  =  five,  Friday  being  the  fifth  working  day.  Similarly  Tuesday  is 
called  Vtornik,  from  vtoroi  =  second  ;  Wednesday  is  Sereda,  "  the  middle  ; " 
Thursday  Chetverg,  from  ctutvcrty  =  fourth.     But  Saturday  is  Sitbboia. 

t  P.  V.S.,  i.  230.     See  also  Buslaef,  "  1st.  Och."  pp.  323,  503-4. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  207 

places  the  villagers  go  to  bed  early  on  Friday  evening, 
believing  that  "  St.  Pyatinka  "  will  punish  all  whom  she 
finds  awake  when  she  roams  through  the  cottage.  In 
others  they  sweep  their  floors  every  Thursday  evening, 
that  she  may  not  be  annoyed  by  dust  or  the  like  when  she 
comes  next  day.  Sometimes,  however,  she  has  been  seen, 
says  the  popular  voice,  "  all  pricked  with  the  needles  and 
pierced  by  the  spindles  "  of  the  careless  woman  who  sewed 
and  spun  on  the  day  they  ought  to  have  kept  holy  in  her 
honor.  As  for  any  work  begun  on  a  Friday,  it  is  sure  to 
go  wrong.* 

These  remarks  will  be  sufficient  to  render  intelligible 
the  following  story  of — 

Friday.  * 
There  was  once  a  certain  woman  who  did  not  pay  due  rev 
erence  to  Mother  Friday,  but  set  to  work  on  a  distaff-ful  of  flax, 
combing  and  whirling  it.  She  span  away  till  dinner-time,  then 
suddenly  sleep  fell  upon  her — such  a  deep  sleep  !  And  when 
she  had  gone  to  sleep,  suddenly  the  door  opened  and  in  came 
Mother  Friday,  before  the  eyes  of  all  who  were  there,  clad  in  a 
white  dress,  and  in  such  a  rage  !  And  she  went  straight  up  to 
the  woman  who  had  been  spinning,  scooped  up  from  the  floor  a 
handful  of  the  dust  that  had  fallen  out  of  the  flax,  and  began  stuff- 
ing and  stuffing  that  woman's  eyes  full  of  it !  And  when  she  had 
stuffed  them  full,  she  went  off  in  a  rage — disappeared  without 
saying  a  word. 

When  the  woman  awoke,  she  began  squalling  at  the  top  of 
her  voice  about  her  eyes,  but  couldn't  tell  what  was  the  matter 
with  them.  The  other  women,  who  had  been  terribly  frightened» 
began  to  cry  out : 

*  A  tradition  of  our  own  relates  that  the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty,  wishing  to 
prove  the  absurdity  of  the  English  sailor's  horror  of  Friday,  commenced  a  ship  on  a 
Friday,  launched  her  on  a  Friday,  named  her  "The  Friday,"  procured  a  Captain 
Friday  to  command  her,  and  sent  her  to  sea  on  a  Friday,  and — she  was  never  heard 
of  again. 

t  Afanasief,  "  Legendui,"  No.  13.     From  the  Tambof  Government. 


208  R  US  SI  A  N  FOLK-  ТА  L  ES. 

*  Oh,  you  wretch,  you  !  you've  brought  a  terrible  punishment 
on  yourself  from  Mother  Friday." 

Then  they  told  her  all  that  had  taken  place.  She  listened  to 
it  all,  and  then  began  imploringly  : 

"  Mother  Friday,  forgive  me  !  pardon  me,  the  guilty  one  ! 
I'll  offer  thee  a  taper,  and  I'll  never  let  friend  or  foe  dishonor 
thee,  Mother!" 

Well,  what  do  you  think  ?  During  the  night,  back  came 
Mother  Friday  and  took  the  dust  out  of  that  woman's  eyes,  so 
that  she  was  able  to  get  about  again.  It's  a  great  sin  to  dishon- 
or Mother  Friday — combing  and  spinning  flax,  forsooth  ! 

Very  similar  to  this  story  is  that  about  Wednesday 
which  follows.  Wednesday,  the  day  consecrated  to  Odin, 
the  eve  of  the  day  sacred  to  the  Thundergod,*  may  also 
have  been  held  holy  by  the  heathen  Slavonians,  but  to  some 
commentators  it  appears  more  likely  that  the  traditions  now 
attached  to  it  in  Russia  became  transferred  to  it  from 
Friday  in  Christian  times — Wednesday  and  Friday  having 
been  associated  by  the  Church  as  days  sacred  to  the  mem- 
ory of  Our  Lord's  passion  and  death.  The  Russian  name 
for  the  day,  Sereda  or  Sreda,  means  "  the  middle,"  Wednes- 
day being  the  middle  of  the  working  week. 

Wednesday. f 

A  young  housewife  was  spinning  late  one  evening.  It  was  dur- 
ing the  night  between  a  Tuesday  and  a  Wednesday.  She  had 
been  left  alone  for  a  long  time,  and  after  midnight,  when  the 
first  cock  crew,  she  began  to  think  about  going  to  bed,  only  she 
would  have  liked  to  finish  spinning  what  she  had  in  hand.  "  Well," 
thinks  she,  "  I'll  get  up  a  bit  earlier  in  the  morning,  but  just 
now  I  want  to  go  to  sleep."  So  she  laid  down  her  hatchel — but 
without  crossing  herself — and  said  : 

*  For  an  account  of  various  similar  superstitions  connected  with  Wednesday  and 
Thursday,  see  Mannhardt's  "  Germanische  Mythen,'' p.  15,  16,  and  W.  Schmidt's 
"  Das  Jahr  und  seine  Tage,"  p.  19. 

Rhudyakof,  No.  166.     From  the  Orel  Government. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  209 

"  Now  then,  Mother  Wednesday,  lend  me  thy  aid,  that  I  may 
get  up  early  in  the  morning  and  finish  my  spinning."  And  then 
she  went  to  sleep. 

Well,  very  early  in  the  morning,  long  before  it  was  light,  she 
heard  someone  moving,  bustling  about  the  room.  She  opened 
her  eyes  and  looked.  The  room  was  lighted  up.  A  splinter  of 
fir  was  burning  in  the  cresset,  and  the  fire  was  lighted  in  the 
stove.  A  woman,  no  longer  young,  wearing  a  white  towel  by 
way  of  head-dress,  was  moving  about  the  cottage,  going  to  and 
fro,  supplying  the  stove  with  firewood,  getting  everything  ready. 
Presently  she  came  up  to  the  young  woman,  and  roused  her,  say- 
ing, "  Get  up  !  "  The  young  woman  got  up,  full  of  wonder,  saying  : 

"  But  who  art  thou  ?  What  hast  thou  come  here  for  ?  " 

"  I  am  she  on  whom  thou  didst  call.    I  have  come  to  thy  aid." 

"  But  who  art  thou  ?     On  whom  did  I  call  ?  " 

"  I  am  Wednesday.  On  Wednesday  surely  thou  didst  call. 
See,  I  have  spun  thy  linen  and  woven  thy  web  :  now  let  us  bleach 
it  and  set  it  in  the  oven.  The  oven  is  heated  and  the  irons  are 
ready  ;  do  thou  go  down  to  the  brook  and  draw  water." 

The  woman  was  frightened,  and  thought :  "  What  manner  of 
thing  is  this  ?  "  (or,  "  How  can  that  be  ?  ")  but  Wednesday  glared 
at  her  angrily  ;  her  eyes  just  did  sparkle  ! 

So  the  woman  took  a  couple  of  pails  and  went  for  water.  As 
soon  as  she  was  outside  the  door  she  thought :  "  Mayn't  some- 
thing terrible  happen  to  me  ?  I'd  better  go  to  my  neighbor's  in- 
stead of  fetching  the  water."  So  she  set  off.  The  night  was 
dark.  In  the  village  all  were  still  asleep.  She  reached  a  neigh- 
bor's house,  and  rapped  away  at  the  window  until  at  last  she 
made  herself  heard.     An  aged  woman  let  her  in. 

"  Why,  child  !  "  says  the  old  crone ;  "  whatever  hast  thou  got 
up  so  early  for  ?  What's  the  matter  ?  " 

и  Oh,  granny,  this  is  how  it  was.  Wednesday  has  come  to  me, 
and  has  sent  me  for  water  to  buck  my  linen  with." 

"  That  doesn't  look  well,"  says  the  old  crone.  <;On  that  linen 
she  will  either  strangle  thee  or  scald  *  thee." 

•  Doubtful.     The  Russian  word  is  "Svmil,"  properly  "  to  cook." 

'4 


210  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

The  old  woman  was  evidently  well  acquainted  with  Wednes- 
day's ways. 

"  What  am  I  to  do  ?  "  says  the  young  woman.  "  How  can  I 
escape  from  this  danger?" 

"  Well,  this  is  what  thou  must  do.  Go  and  beat  thy  paiis  to- 
gether in  front  of  the  house,  and  cry,  "  Wednesday's  children 
have  been  burnt  at  sea  !  "  *  She  will  run  out  of  the  house,  and 
do  thou  be  sure  to  seize  the  opportunity  to  get  into  it  before  she 
comes  back,  and  immediately  slam  the  door  to,  and  make  the 
sign  of  the  cross  over  it.  Then  don't  let  her  in,  however  much 
she  may  threaten  you  or  implore  you,  but  sign  a  cross  with  your 
hands,  and  draw  one  with  a  piece  of  chalk,  and  utter  a  prayer. 
The  Unclean  Spirit  will  have  to  disappear. 

Well,  the  young  woman  ran  home,  beat  the  pails  together, 
and  cried  out  beneath  the  window : 

"  Wednesday's  children  have  been  burnt  at  sea!" 

Wednesday  rushed  out  of  the  house  and  ran  to  look,  and  the 
woman  sprang  inside,  shut  the  door,  and  set  a  cross  upon  it. 
Wednesday  came  running  back,  and  began  crying:  "Let  me  in, 
my  dear !  I  have  spun  thy  linen  ;  now  will  I  bleach  it."  But  the 
woman  would  not  listen  to  her,  so  Wednesday  went  on  knocking 
at  the  door  until  cock-crow.  As  soon  as  the  cocks  crew,  she 
uttered  a  shrill  cry  and  disappeared.  But  the  linen  remained 
where  itwas.f 

*  Compare  the  English  nursery  rhyme  addressed  to  the  lady-bird  : 
"  Lady-bird,  lady-bird,  fly  away  home, 
Your  house  is  a-fire,  your  children  at  home." 

t  Wednesday  ii:  this,  and  Friday  in  the  preceding  story,  are  the  exact  counter- 
parts of  Lithuanian  Laumes.  According  to  Schleicher  ("  Lituanica,"  p.  109),  Thurs 
day  evening  is  called  in  Lithuania  Laamiu  vakars,  the  Laume's  Eve.  No  work 
ought  to  be  done  on  a  Thursday  evening,  and  it  is  especially  imprudent  to  spin  then. 
For  at  night,  when  the  Laumes  come,  as  they  are  accustomed  to  do  between  Thursday 
evening  and  P'riday  morning,  they  seize  any  spinning  which  has  been  begun,  work 
away  at  it  till  cockcrow,  and  then  carry  it  off.  In  modern  Greece  the  women  attrib- 
ute all  nightly  meddling  with  their  spinning  to  the  Nerdides  (the  representatives  of 
the  Hellenic  Nereids.  See  Bernhard  Schmidt's  "  Volksleben  der  Neugriechen,"  p. 
m).  In  some  respects  the  Nerdida  closely  resemble  the  Lamia,  and  both  of  them 
hi/;  many  features  in  common  with  the  Laume.  The  latter  name  (which  in  Lettish 
Is  written  Lnuma)  has  never  been  satisfactorily  explained.  Can  it  be  connected  with 
the  Greek  Lamia,  which  is  now  written  also  as  Xduvta,    Aauva   and  Аацпоса  ? 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  211 

In  one  of  the  numerous  legends  which  the  Russian 
peasants  hold  in  reverence,  St.  Petka  or  Friday  appears 
among  the  other  saints,  and  together  with  her  is  mentioned 
another  canonized  day,  St.  Nede'iya  or  Sunday,*  answering 
to  the  Greek  St.  Anastasia,  to  Der  heilige  Sonntagol  German 
peasant-hagiology.  In  some  respects  she  resembles  both 
Friday  and  Wednesday,  sharing  their  views  about  spinning 
and  weaving  at  unfitting  seasons.  Thus  in  Little-Russia  she 
assures  untimely  spinners  that  it  is  not  flax  they  are  spin- 
ning, but  her  hair,  and  in  proof  of  this  she  shows  them  her 
dishevelled  kosa,  or  long  back  plait. 

In  one  of  the  Wallachian  tales  f  the  hero  is  assisted  in 
his  search  after  the  dragon-stolen  heroine  by  three  super- 
natural females — the  holy  Mothers  Friday,  Wednesday,  and 
Sunday.  They  replace  the  three  benignant  Baba  Yagas  of 
Russian  stories.  In  another,!  the  same  three  beings  assist 
the  Wallachian  Psyche  when  she  is  wandering  in  quest  of 
her  lost  husband.  Mother  Sunday  rules  the  animal  world, 
and  can  collect  her  subjects  by  playing  on  a  magic  flute. 
She  is  represented  as  exercising  authority  over  both  birds 
and  beasts,  and  in  a  Slovak  story  she  bestows  on  the  here 
a  magic  horse.  He  has  been  sent  by  an  unnatural  mother 
in  search  of  various  things  hard  to  be  obtained,  but  he  is 
assisted  in  the  quest  by  St.  Nedelka,  who  provides  him  with 
various  magical  implements,  and  lends  him  her  own  steed 
Tatoschik,  and  so  enables  him  four  times  to  escape  from 
the  perils  to  which  he  has  been  exposed  by  his  mother, 
whose  mind  has  been  entirely  corrupted  by  an  insidious 
dragon.      But  after   he   has  returned  home  in  safety,  his 

*  The  word  Nedyelya.  now  means  "a  week."  But  it  originally  meant  Sunday, 
the  non-working  day  {ne  =  not,  dyelaf  —  to  do  or  work.)  After  a  time,  the  n  lme 
for  the  first  day  of  the  week  became  transferred  to  the  week  itself. 

t  That  of  "  Wilisch  Witiasu,"  Schott,  No.  n. 

%  That  of  "  Trandafiru,"  Schott,  No.  2}. 


*J  12  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

mother  binds  him  as  if  in  sport,  and  the  dragon  chops  off 
his  head  and  cuts  his  body  to  pieces.  His  mother  retains 
his  heart,  but  ties  up  the  rest  of  him  in  a  bundle,  and  sets 
it  on  Tatoschik's  back.  The  steed  carries  its  ghastly 
burden  to  St.  Nedelka,  who  soon  reanimates  it,  and  the 
youth  becomes  as  sound  and  vigorous  as  a  young  man  with- 
out a  heart  can  be.  Then  the  saint  sends  him,  under  the 
disguise  of  a  begging  piper,  to  the  castle  in  which  his  mother 
dwells,  and  instructs  him  how  to  get  his  heart  back  again. 
He  succeeds,  and  carries  it  in  his  hand  to  St.  Nedelka- 
She  gives  it  to  "  the  bird  Pelekan  (no  mere  Pelican,  but  a 
magic  fowl  with  a  very  long  and  slim  neck),  which  puts  its 
head  down  the  youth's  throat,  and  restores  his  heart  to  its 
right  place.* 

St.  Friday  and  St.  Wednesday  appear  to  belong  to 
that  class  of  spiritual  beings,  sometimes  of  a  demoniacal 
disposition,  with  which  the  imagination  of  the  old  Slavon- 
ians peopled  the  elements.  Of  several  of  these — such  as 
the  Domovoy  or  House-Spirit,  the  Rusalka  or  Naiad,  and 
the  Vodyany  or  Water-Sprite — I  have  written  at  some 
length  elsewhere,!  and  therefore  I  will  not  at  present 
quote  any  of  the  stories  in  which  they  figure.  But,  as  a 
specimen  of  the  class  to  which  such  tales  as  these  belong, 
here  is  a  skazka  about  one  of  the  wood-sprites  or  Slavonic 
Satyrs,  who  are  still  believed  by  the  peasants  to  haunt  the 
forests  of  Russia.  In  it  we  see  reduced  to  a  vulgar  form, 
and  brought  into  accordance  with  every-day  peasant-life, 
the  myth  which  appears  to  have  given  rise  to  the   endless 

*  J.  Wenzig's  "  Westslawischer  MSrchenschatz,"  pp.  144-155.  According  to 
Wen/ig  Nedelka  is  "  the  personified  first  Sunday  after  the  new  moon."  The  pan 
here  attributed  to  St.  Nedelka  is  played  by  a  Vila  in  one  of  the  Songs  of  Montenegro. 
According  to  an  ancient  Indian  tradition,  the  Aswattha-tree  "is  to  be  touched  only  on 
a  Sunday,  for  on  every  other  day  Poverty  or  Misfortune  abides  in  it  :  on  Sunday  it 
is  the  residence  of  Likshmf  "  (Good  Fortune).     H.  H.  Wilson  "Works,"  iii.  70- 

f  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  pp.  120-153. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  213 

stones  about  the  theft  and  recovery  of  queens  and  prin- 
cesses. The  leading  idea  of  the  story  is  the  same,  but 
the  Snake  or  Koshchei  has  become  a  paltry  wood-demon, 
the  hero  is  a  mere  hunter,  and  the  princely  heroine  has 
sunk  to  the  low  estate  of  a  priest's  daughter. 

The  Leshy.* 
A  certain  priest's  daughter  went  strolling  in  the  forest  one  day, 
without  having  obtained  leave  from  her  father  or  her  modier — ■ 
and  she  disappeared  utterly.  Three  years  went  by.  Now  in 
the  village  in  which  her  parents  dwelt  there  lived  a  bold  hunter, 
who  went  daily  roaming  through  the  thick  woods  with  his  dog  and 
his  gun.  One  day  he  was  going  through  the  forest ;  all  of  a  sud- 
den his  dog  began  to  bark,  and  the  hair  of  its  back  bristled  up. 
The  sportsman  looked,  and  saw  lying  in  the  woodland  path  be- 
fore him  a  log,  and  on  the  log  there  sat  a  moujik  plating  a  bast 
shoe.  And  as  he  plaited  the  shoe,  he  kept  looking  up  at  the 
moon,  and  saying  with  a  menacing  gesture  : — 

"  Shine,  shine,  О  bright  moon  ! " 

The  sportsman  was  astounded.  "  How  comes  it,"  thinks  he, 
"  that  the  moujik  looks  like  that  ? — he  is  still  young ;  but  his 
hair  is  grey  as  a  badger's. "f 

He  only  thought  these  words,  but  the  other  replied,  as  if 
guessing  what  he  meant : — 

"  Grey  am  I,  being  the  devil's  grandfather  !  "  % 

Then  the  sportsman  guessed  that  he  had  before  him  no  mere 
moujik,  but  a  Leshy.  He  levelled  his  gun  and — bang!  he  let 
him  have  it  right  in  the  paunch.  The  Leshy  groaned,  and 
seemed  to  be  going  to  fall  across  the  log ;  but  directly  after- 
wards he  got  up  and  dragged  himself  into  the  thickets.  After 
him  ran  the  dog  in  pursuit,  and  after  the  dog  followed  the  sports, 
man.  He  walked  and  walked,  and  came  to  a  hill :  in  that  hill 
was  a  fissure,  and  in  the  fissure   stood  a  hut.     He  entered  the 

*  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  33.  The  name  Leshy  or  Lyeshy  is  derived  from  lyes,  a  forest, 
t  Literally  "as a  fan,"  a  kind  of  hawk  (fa/со  ruslicofas).     Lun  also  means  a 
greyish  light. 

%  Ottogo  у  a  i eyed chto  chart  o/ dyed. 


2H  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

hut — there  on  a  bench  lay  the  Leshy  stone  dead,  and  by  his 
side  a  damsel,  exclaiming,  amid  bitter  tears  : — 

"  Who  now  will  give  me  to  eat  and  to  drink  ?  " 

"  Hail,  fair  maiden  !  "  says  the  hunter.  "  Tell  me  whence 
thou  comest,  and  whose  daughter  thou  art  ?  '" 

"  Ah,  good  youth  !  I  know  not  that  myself,  any  more  than  if 
I  had  never  seen  the  free  light — never  known  a  father  and 
mother." 

"  Well,  get  ready  as  soon  as  you  can.  I  will  take  you  back 
to  Holy  Russia." 

So  he  took  her  away  with  him,  and  brought  her  out  of  the 
forest.  And  all  the  way  he  went  along,  he  cut  marks  on  the 
trees.  Now  this  damsel  had  been  carried  off  by  the  Leshy,  and 
had  lived  in  his  hut  for  three  years — her  clothes  were  all  worn 
out,  or  had  got  torn  off  her  back,  so  that  she  was  stark  naked ! 
but  she  wasn't  a  bit  ashamed  of  that.  When  they  reached  the 
village,  the  sportsman  began  asking  whether  there  was  any  one 
there  who  had  lost  a  girl.  Up  came  the  priest,  and  cried,  "Why, 
that's  my  daughter."  Up  came  running  the  priest's  wife,  and 
cried  : — 

"O  thou  dear  child  !  where  hast  thou  been  so  long?  I  had 
no  hope  of  ever  seeing  thee  again." 

But  the  girl  gazed  and  just  blinked  with  her  eyes,  understand- 
ing nothing.  After  a  time,  however,  she  began  slowly  to  come 
back  to  her  senses.  Then  the  priest  and  his  wife  gave  her  in 
marriage  to  the  hunter,  and  rewarded  him  with  all  sorts  of  good 
things.  And  they  went  in  search  of  the  hut  in  which  she  had 
lived  while  she  was  with  the  Leshy.  Long  did  they  wander 
about  the  forest ;  but  that  hut  they  never  found. 

To  another  group  of  personifications  belong  those  of 
the  Rivers.  About  them  many  stories  are  current,  gener- 
ally having  reference  to  their  alleged  jealousies  and  dis- 
putes. Thus  it  is  said  that  when  God  was  alloting  their 
shares  to  the  rivers,  the  Desna  did  not  come  in  time,  and  so 
failed  to  obtain  precedence  over  the  Dnieper. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  215 

"Try  and  get  before  him  yourself,"  said  the  Lord. 

The  Desna  set  off  at  full  speed,  but  in  spite  of  all  her 
attempts,  the  Dnieper  always  kept  ahead  of  her  until  he 
fell  into  the  sea,  where  the  Desna  was  obliged  to  join 
him.* 

About  the  Volga  and  its  affluent,  the  Vazuza,  the  follow- 
ing story  is  told  : — 

Vazuza  and  VoLGA.f 

Volga  and  Vazuza  had  a  long  dispute  as  to  which  was  the  wiser, 
the  stronger,  and  the  more  worthy  of  high  respect.  They  wran- 
gled and  wrangled,  but  neither  could  gain  the  mastery  in  the  dis- 
pute, so  they  decided  upon  the  following  course  : — 

"  Let  us  lie  down  together  to  sleep,"  they  said,  "  and  which- 
ever of  us  is  the  first  to  rise,. and  the  quickest  to  reach  the  Cas- 
pian Sea,  she  shall  be  held  to  be  the  wiser  of  us  two,  and  the. 
stronger  and  the  worthier  of  respect." 

So  Volga  lay  down  to  sleep ;  down  lay  Vazuza  also.  But 
during  the  night  Vazuza  rose  silently,  fled  away  from  Volga, 
chose  the  nearest  and  the  straightest  line,  and  flowed  away. 
When  Volga  awoke,  she  set  off  neither  slowly  nor  hurriedly,  but 
with  just  befitting  speed.  At  Zubtsof  she  came  up  with  Vazuza.  So 
threatening  was  her  mien,  that  Vazuza  was  frightened,  declared 
herself  to  be  Volga's  younger  sister,  and  besought  Volga  to  take 
her  in  her  arms  and  bear  her  to  the  Caspian  Sea.  And  so  to 
this  day  Vazuza  is  the  first  to  awake  in  the  Spring,  and  then  she 
arouses  Volga  from  her  wintry  sleep. 

In  the  Government  of  Tula  a  similar  tradition  is  current 
about  the  Don  and  the  Shat,  both  of  which  flow  out  of 
Lake  Ivan. 

Lake  Ivan  had  two  sons,  Shat  and  Don.  Shat,  contrary 
to  his  father's  wishes,  wanted  to  roam  abroad,  so  he  set 
out  on  his  travels,  but  go  whither  he  would,  he  could  get 

*  Afanasief,  P.  VS.,  i.i.  226. 

t  Afanasief,  iv-  No.  40.     Frcm  the  Tver  Government. 


216  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

received  nowhere.  So,  after  fruitless  wanderings,  he  re- 
turned home. 

But  Don,  in  return  for  his  constant  quietness  (the  river 
is  known  as  "  the  quiet  Don  "),  obtained  his  father's  bless- 
ing, and  he  boldly  set  out  on  a  long  journey.  On  the  way, 
he  met  a  raven,  and  asked  it  where  it  was  flying. 

"  To  the  blue  sea,"  answered  the  raven. 

"  Let's  go  together  !  " 

Well,  they  reached  the  sea.  Don  thought  to  himself, 
"  If  I  dive  right  through  the  sea,  I  shall  carry  it  away  with 
me." 

"  Raven  !  "  he  said,  "  do  me  a  service.  I  am  going  to 
plunge  into  the  sea,  but  do  you  fly  over  to  the  other  side ; 
and  as  soon  as  you  reach  the  opposite  shore,  give  a  croak." 

Don  plunged  into  the  sea.  The  raven  flew  and  croaked 
— but  too  soon.  Don  remained  just  as  he  appears  at  the 
present  day.* 

In  White-Russia  there  is  a  legend  about  two  rivers,  the 
beginning  of  which  has  evidently  been  taken  from  the  story 
of  Jacob  and  Esau  : — 

SOZH  AND  DN4EPER. 

There  was  once  a  blind  old  man  called  Dvina,  He  had 
two  sons — the  elder  called  Sozh,  and  the  younger  Dnieper. 
Sozh  was  of  a  boisterous  turn,  and  went  roving  about  the  for- 
ests, the  hills,  and  the  plains  ;  but  Dnieper  was  remarkably 
sweet-tempered,  and  he  spent  all  his  time  at  home,  and  was  his 
mother's  favorite.  Once,  when  Sozh  was  away  from  home,  the 
old  father  was  deceived  by  his  wife  into  giving  the  elder  son's 
blessing  to  the  younger  son.  Thus  spake  Dvina  while  blessing 
him : — 

"  Dissolve,  my  son,  into  a  wide  and  deep  river.     Flow  past 

•  Translated  literally  from  Afanasief,   P.  V.  S.  ii.  227. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  217 

towns,  and  bathe  villages  without  number  as  far  as  the  blue  sea. 
Thy  brother  shall  be  thy  servant.  Be  rich  and  prosperous  to 
the  end  of  t'me  !  " 

Dnieper  turned  into  a  river,  and  flowed  through  fertile  mea- 
dows and  dreamy  woods.  But  after  three  days,  Sozh  returned 
home  and  began  to  complain. 

'•  If  thou  dost  desire  to  become  superior  to  thy  brother," 
said  his  father,  "  speed  swiftly  by  hidden  ways,  through  dark 
untrodden  forests,  and  if  thou  canst  outstrip  thy  brother,  he  will 
have  to  be  thy  servant !  " 

Away  sped  Sozh  on  the  chase,  through  untrodden  places» 
washing  away  swamps,  cutting  out  gullies,  tearing  up  oaks  by 
the  roots.  The  Vulture*  told  Dnieper  of  this,  and  he  put  on 
extra  speed,  tearing  his  way  through  high  hills  rather  than  turn 
on  one  side.  Meanwhile  Sozh  persuaded  the  Raven  to  fly 
straight  to  Dnieper,  and,  as  soon  as  it  had  come  up  with  him 
to  croak  three  times  ;  he  himself  was  to  burrow  under  the  earth, 
intending  to  leap  to  the  surface  at  the  cry  of  the  Raven,  and  by 
that  means  to  get  before  his  brother.  But  the  Vulture  fell  on 
the  Raven  ;  the  Raven  began  to  croak  before  it  had  caught  up 
the  river  Dnieper.  Up  burst  St)zh  from  underground,  and  fell 
straight  into  the  waves  of  the  Dnieper. \ 

Here  is  an  account  of — 

The  Metamorphosis   of  the  Dnieper,  the  Volga,   axd 
the  Dvina.J 

The  Dnieper,  Volga,  and  Dvina  used  once  to  be  living  people. 
The  Dnieper  was  a  boy,  and  the  Volga  and  Dvina  his  sisters. 
While  they  were  still  in  childhood  they  were  left  complete  or- 
phans, and,  as  they  hadn't  a  crust  to  eat,  they  were  obliged  to 
get  their  living  by  daily  labor  beyond  their  strength.  "  When 
was  that  ?  "  Very  long  ago,  say  the  old  folks ;  beyond  the 
memory  even  of  our  great-grandfathers. 

*  Yastreb  =  vulture  or  goshawk 

t  Quoted  from  rjorichesky  (pp.  183-5)  ^У  Af.inasief. 

+  Tereshchenltu.  v  43,  44. 


218  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Well,  the  children  grew  up,  but  they  never  had  even  the 
slightest  bit  of  good  luck.  Every  day,  from  morn  till  eve,  it  was 
always  toil  and  toil,  and  all  merely  for  the  day's  subsistence.  As 
for  their  clothing,  it  was  just  what  God  sent  them  !  They  some- 
times found  rags  on  the  dust-heaps,  and  with  these  they  managed 
to  cover  their  bodies.  The  poor  things  had  to  endure  cold  and 
hunger.     Life  became  a  burden  to  them.* 

One  day,  after  toiling  hard  afield,  they  sat  down  under  a  bush 
to  eat  their  last  morsel  of  bread.  And  when  they  had  eaten  it, 
they  cried  and  sorrowed  for  a  while,  and  considered  and  held 
counsel  together  as  to  how  they  might  manage  to  live,  and  to 
have  food  and  clothing,  and,  without  toiling,  to  supply  others 
with  meat  and  drink.  Well,  this  is  what  they  resolved  :  to  set 
out  wandering  about  the  wide  world  in  search  of  good  luck  and 
a  kindly  welcome,  and  to  look  for  and  find  out  the  best  places 
in  which  they  could  turn  into  great  rivers — for  that  was  a  possible 
thing  then. 

Well,  they  walked  and  walked  ;  not  one  year  only,  nor  two 
years,  but  all  but  three  ;  and  they  chose  the  places  they  wanted, 
and  came  to  an  agreement  as  to  where  the  flowing  of  each  one 
should  begin.  And  all  three  of  them  stopped  to  spend  the  night 
in  a  swamp.  But  the  sisters  were  more  cunning  than  their 
brother.  No  sooner  was  Dnieper  asleep  than  they  rose  up 
quietly,  chose  the  best  and  most  sloping  places,  and  began  to 
flow  away. 

When  the  brother  awoke  in  the  morning,  not  a  trace  of  his 
sisters  was  to  be  seen.  Then  he  became  wroth,  and  made 
haste  to  pursue  them.  But  on  the  way  he  bethought  himself, 
and  decided  that  no  man  can  run  faster  than  a  river.  So  he 
smote  the  ground,  and  flowed  in  pursuit  as  a  stream.  Through 
gullies  and  ravines  he  rushed,  and  the  further  he  went  the 
fiercer  did  he  become.  But  when  he  came  withen  a  few  versts 
of  the  sea-shore,  his  anger  ca'med  down  and  he  disappeared  in 
the  sea  And  his  two  sisters,  who  had  continued  running  from 
him  during  his  pursuit,  separated  in  different  directions  and  fled 

*  Literally     "'  Life  disgusted  them  worse  than  a  bitter  radish." 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  21  > 

to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  But  while  the  Dnieper  was  rushing 
along  in  anger,  he  drove  his  way  between  steep  banks.  There- 
fore is  it  that  his  flow  is  swifter  than  that  of  the  Volga  and  the 
Dvina  ;  therefore  also  is  it  that  he  has  many  rapids  and  many 
mouths. 

There  is  a  small  stream  which  falls  into  Lake  Umen 
on  its  western  side,  and  which  is  called  Chorny  Ruchei, 
the  Black  Brook.  On  the  banks  of  this  brook,  a  long 
time  ago,  a  certain  man  set  up  a  mill,  and  the  fish  came 
and  implored  the  stream  to  grant  them  its  aid,  saying, 
"  We  used  to  have  room  enough  and  be  at  our  ease,  but 
now  an  evil  man  is  taking  away  the  water  from  us."  And 
the  result  was  this.  One  of  the  inhabitants  of  Novgorod 
was  angling  in  the  brook  Chorny.  Up  came  a  stranger  to 
him,  dressed  all  in  black,  who  greeted  him,  and  said  : — 

"  Do  me  a  service,  and  I  will  show  thee  a  place  where 
the  fish  swarm." 

"  What  is  the  service  ?  " 

"When  thou  art  in  Novgorod,  thou  wilt  meet  a  tall, 
big  moujik  in  a  plaited  blue  caftan,  wide  blue  trowsers, 
and  a  high  blue  hat.  Say  to  him,  "  Uncle  Ilmen  !  the 
Chorny  has  sent  thee  a  petition,  and  has  told  me  to  say 
that  a  mill  has  been  set  in  his  way.  As  thou  may'st  think 
fit  to  order,  so  shall  it  be  ! " 

The  Novgorod  man  promised  to  fulfil  this  request,  and 
the  black  stranger  showed  him  a  place  where  the  fish 
swarmed  by  thousands.  With  rich  booty  did  the  fisherman 
return  to  Novgorod,  where  he  met  the  moujik  with  the 
blue  caftan,  and  gave  him  the  petition.  The  Ilmen  an- 
swered : — 

"  Give  my  compliments  to  the  brook  Chorny,  and  say 
to  him  about  the  mill :  there  used  not  to  be  one,  and  so 
there  shall  not  be  one  !  " 


220  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

This  commission  also  the  Novgorod  man  fulfilled,  and 
beheld  !  during  the  night  the  brook  Chorny  ran  riotous, 
Lake  Ilmen  waxed  boisterous,  a  tempest  arose,  and  the 
raging  waters  swept  away  the  mill.* 

In  old  times  sacrifices  were  regularly  paid  to  lakes  and 
streams  in  Russia,  just  as  they  were  in  Germany  f  and  in 
other  lands.  And  even  at  the  present  day  the  common 
people  are  in  the  habit  of  expressing,  by  some  kind  of 
offering,  their  thanks  to  a  river  on  which  they  have  made 
a  prosperous  voyage.  It  is  said  that  Stenka  Razin,  the 
insurgent  chief  of  the  Don  Cossacks  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  once  offered  a  human  sacrifice  to  the  Volga. 
Among  his  captives  was  a  Persian  princess,  to  whom  he 
was  warmly  attached.  But  one  day  '-when  he  was  fevered 
with  wine,  as  he  sat  at  the  ship's  side  and  musingly  re- 
garded the  waves,  he  said :  '  Oh,  Mother  Volga,  thou 
great  river  !  much  hast  thou  given  me  of  gold  and  of  silver, 
and  of  all  good  things  ;  thou  hast  nursed  me,  and  nourished 
me,  and  covered  me  with  glory  and  honor.  But  I  have  in 
no  way  shown  thee  my  gratitude.  Here  is  somewhat  for 
thee  ;  take  it ! '  And  with  these  words  he  caught  up  the 
princess  and  flung  her  into  the  water."  $ 

Just  as  rivers  might  be  conciliated  by  honor  and  sacri- 
fice, so  they  could  be  irritated  by  disrespect.  One  of  the 
old  songs  tells  how  a  youth  comes  riding  to  the  Smorodina, 
and  beseeches  that  stream  to  show  him  a  ford.  His  prayer 
is  granted,  and  he  crosses  to  the  other  side.  Then  he 
takes  to  boasting,  and  says,  "  People  talk  about  the  Smoro- 
dina, saying  that  no  one  can  cross  it  whether  on  foot  or  on 
horseback — but  it  is  no  better  than  a  pool  of  rain-water ! " 

*  Translated  literally  from  Afanasief,  P.  V.S.  ii.  230. 

♦  "  Deutsche  Mythologie,"  462.  %  Afanasief,  loc.  cit.  p.  231. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  221 

But  when  the  time  comes  for  him  to  cross  back  again,  the 
river  takes  its  revenge,  and  drowns  him  in  its  depths,  say- 
ing the  while  :  "  It  is  not  I,  but  thy  own  boasting  that 
drowns  thee." 

From  these  vocal  rivers  we  will  now  turn  to  that  ele- 
mentary force  by  which  in  winter  they  are  often  rendered 
mute.  In  the  story  which  is  now  about  to  be  quoted  will 
be  found  a  striking  personification  of  Frost.  As  a  general 
rule,  Winter  plays  by  no  means  so  important  a  part  as 
might  have  been  expected  in  Northern  tales.  As  in  other 
European  countries,  so  in  Russia,  the  romantic  stories  of 
the  people  are  full  of  pictures  bathed  in  warm  sunlight,  but 
they  do  not  often  represent  the  aspect  of  the  land  when 
the  sky  is  grey,  and  the  earth  is  a  sheet  of  white,  and  out- 
door life  is  sombre  and  still.  Here  and  there,  it  is  true, 
glimpses  of  snowy  landscapes  are  offered  by  the  skazkas. 
But  it  is  seldom  that  a  wintry  effect  is  so  deliberately  pro- 
duced in  them  as  is  the  case  in  the  following  remarkable 
version  of  a  well-known  tale. 

Frost.* 
There  was  once  an  old  man  who  had  a  wife  and  three  daugh- 
ters. The  wife  had  no  love  for  the  eldest  of  the  three,  who 
was  her  step-daughter,  but  was  always  scolding  her.  Moreover, 
she  used  to  make  her  get  up  ever  so  early  in  the  morning,  and 
gave  her  all  the  work  of  the  house  to  do.  Before  daybreak  the 
girl  would  feed  the  cattle  and  give  them  to  drink,  fetch  wood 
and  water  in-doors,  light  the  fire  in  the  stove,  give  the  room  a 
wash,  mend  the  dresses,  and  set  everything  in  order.  Even 
then  her  step-mother  was  never  satisfied,  but  would  grumble 
away  at  Marfa,  exclaiming  : — 

"  What  a  lazybones  !  what  a  slut !  Why  here's  a  brush  not 
in  its  place,  and  there's  something  put  wrong,  and  she's  left  the 
muck  inside  the  house  !  " 

*  Afanasief,  iv.  No.  42.     From  the  Vo'cgda  Government. 


222  R  USSI A  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

The  girl  held  her  peace,  and  wept;  she  tried  in  every  way  to 
accommodate  herself  to  her  step-mother,  and  to  be  of  service  to 
her  step-sisters.  But  they,  taking  pattern  by  their  mother,  were 
always  insulting  Marfa,  quarrelling  with  her,  and  making  her 
cry  :  that  was  even  a  pleasure  to  them  !  As  for  them,  they  lay 
in  bed  late,  washed  themselves  in  water  got  ready  for  them, 
dried  themselves  with  a  clean  towel,  and  didn't  sit  down  to 
work  till  after  dinner. 

Well,  our  girls  grew  and  grew,  until  they  grew  up  and  were 
old  enough  to  be  married.  The  old  man  felt  sorry  for  his  eldest 
daughter,  whom  he  loved  because  she  was  industrious  and 
obedient,  never  was  obstinate,  always  did  as  she  was  bid,  and 
never  uttered  a  word  of  contradiction.  But  he  didn't  know  how 
he  was  to  help  her  in  her  trouble.  He  was  feeble,  his  wife  was 
a  scold,  and  her  daughters  were  as  obstinate  as  they  were 
indolent. 

Well,  the  old  folks  set  to  work  to  consider — the  husband 
how  he  could  get  his  daughters  settled,  the  wife  how  she  could 
get  rid  of  the  eldest  one.     One  day  she  says  to  him  : — 

"  I  say,  old  man  !  let's  get  Marfa  married." 

"  Gladly,"  says  he,  slinking  off  (to  the  sleeping-place)  above 
the  stove.     But  his  wife  called  after  him  : — 

"  Get  up  early  to-morrow,  old  man,  harness  the  mare  to  the 
sledge,  and  drive  away  with  Marfa.  And,  Marfa,  get  your 
things  together  in  a  basket,  and  put  on  a  clean  shift;  you're 
going  away  to-morrow  on  a  visit." 

Poor  Marfa  was  delighted  to  hear  of  such  a  piece  of  good 
luck  as  being  invited  on  a  visit,  and  she  slept  comfortably  all 
night.  Early  next  morning  she  got  up,  washed  herself,  prayed 
to  God,  got  all  her  things  together,  packed  them  away  in  proper 
order,  dressed  herself  (in  her  best  things),  and  looked  .some- 
thing like  a  lass  ! — a  bride  fit  for  any  place  whatsoever  ! 

Now  it  was  winter  time,  and  out  of  doors  was  a  rattling 
frost.  Early  in  the  morning,  between  daybreak  and  sunrise, 
the  old  man  harnessed  the  mare  to  the  sledge,  and  led  it  up  to 
the  steps.  Then  he  went  in-doors,  sat  down  on  the  window-sill, 
and  said : — 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  223 

"  Now  then  !  I've  got  everything  ready." 

"  Sit  down  to  table  and  swallow  your  victuals  !  "  replied  the 
old  woman. 

The  old  man  sat  down  to  table,  and  made  his  daughter  sit 
by  his  side.  On  the  table  stood  a  pannier  ;  he  took  out  a  loaf,* 
and  cut  bread  for  himself  and  his  daughter.  Meantime  his 
wife  served  up  a  dish  of  old  cabbage  soup,  and  said  : — 

"  There,  my  pigeon,  eat  and  be  off;  I've  looked  at  you  quite 
enough!  Drive  Marfa  to  her  bridegroom,  old  man.  And  look 
here,  old  greybeard  !  drive  straight  along  the  road  at  first,  and 
then  turn  off  from  the  road  to  the  right,  you  know,  into  the 
forest — right  up  to  the  big  pine  that  stands  on  the  hill,  and  there 
hand  Marfa  over  to  Morozko  (Frost)." 

The  old  man  opened  his  eyes  wide,  also  his  mouth,  and 
stopped  eating,  and  the  girl  began  lamenting. 

"  Now  then,  what  are  you  hanging  your  chaps  and  squealing 
about  ?  "  said  her  step-mother.  "  Surely  your  bridegroom  is  a 
beauty,  and  he's  that  rich  !  Why,  just  see  what  a  lot  of  things 
belong  to  him,  the  firs,  the  pine-tops,  and  the  birches,  all  in 
their  robes  of  down — ways  and  means  that  any  one  might  envy; 
and  he  himself  a  bogatir!"  f 

The  old  man  silently  placed  the  things  on  the  sledge,  made 
his  daughter  put  on  a  warm  pelisse,  and  set  off  on  the  journey. 
After  a  time,  he  reached  the  forest,  turned  off  from  the  road, 
and  drove  across  the  frozen  snow. J  When  he  got  into  the 
depths  of  the  forest,  he  stopped,  made  his  daughter  get  out, 
laid  her  basket  under  the  tall  pine,  ar.d  said  : — 

"  Sit  here,  and  await  the  bridegroom.  And  mind  you  receive 
him  as  pleasantly  as  you  can." 

Then  he  turned  his  horse  round  and  drove  off  homewards. 

The  girl  sat  and  shivered.  The  cold  had  pierced  her  through. 
She  would  fa  n  have   cried  aloud,  but  she  had  not  strengch 

*  Chelpan,  a  sort  of  dough  cake,  or  pie  without  stuffing. 

t  Bogatir  is  the  regular  term  for  a  Russian  "  hero  of  romance."     Its  origir    i* 
disputed,  but  it  appears  to  be  of  Tartar  extraction, 
t  Л'агг,  snow  that  has  thawed  and  frozen  again. 


221  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

enough ;  only  her  teeth  chattered.  Suddenly  she  heard  a 
sound.  Not  far  off,  Frost  was  cracking  away  on  a  fir.  From 
fir  to  fir  was  he  leaping,  and  snapping  his  fingers.  Presently  he 
appeared  on  that  very  pine  under  which  the  maiden  was  sitting 
and  from  above  her  head  he  cried : — 
"  Art  thou  warm,  maiden  ? " 

"  Warm,  warm  am  I,  dear  Father  Frost,"  she  replied. 
Frost  began  to  descend  lower,  all  the  more  cracking  and 
snapping  his  fingers.     To  the  maiden  said  Frost : — 

"  Arf.  thou  warm,  maiden  ?     Art  thou  warm,  fair  one  ?  " 
The  girl  could  scarcely  draw  her  breath,  but  still  she  replied : 
"  Warm  am  I,  Frost  dear  :  warm  am  I,  father  dear  !  " 
Frost  began  cracking  more  than  ever,  and  more  loudly  did 
he  snap  his  fingers,  and  to  the  maiden  he  said  : — 

"Art  thou   warm,   maiden?     Art   thou  warm,  pretty   one? 
Art  thou  warm,  my  darling  ? " 

The  girl  was  by  this  time  numb  with  cold,  and  she  could 
scarcely  make  herself  heard  as  she  replied : — 
"  Oh  !  quite  warm,  Frost  dearest !  " 

Then   Frost  took  pity  on  the  girl,  wrapped  her  up  in  furs 
and  warmed  her  with  blankets. 

Next  morning  the  old  woman  said  to  her  husband : — 
"  Drive  out,  old  greybeard,  and  wake  the  young  couple !  " 
The  old  man  harnessed  his  horse  and  drove  off.  When  he 
came  to  where  his  daughter  was,  he  found  she  was  alive  and  had 
got  a  good  pelisse,  a  costly  bridal  veil,  and  a  pannier  with  rich 
gifts.  He  stowed  everything  away  on  the  sledge  without  saying 
a  word,  took  his  seat  on  it  with  his  daughter,  and  drove  back. 
They  reached  home,  and  the  daughter  fell  at  her  step-mother's 
feet.  The  old  woman  was  thunderstruck  when  she  saw  the  girl 
alive,  and  the  new  pelisse  and  the  basket  of  linen. 

"  Ah,  you  wretch  !  "  she  cries.     "  But  you  shan't  trick  me  ! 
Well,  a  little  later  the  old  woman  says  to  her  husband : — 
"  Take  my  daughters,  too,  to  their  bridegroom.     The  presents 
he's  made  are  nothing  to  what  he'll  give  them." 

Well,  early  next  morning  the  old  Woman  gave  her  girls  theif 


M  J  'THOL OGICAL.  22c 

breakfast,  dressed  them  as  befitted  brides,  and  sent  them  off  on 
their  journey.  In  the  same  way  as  before  the  old  man  left  the 
girls  under  the  pine. 

There  the  girls  sat,  and  kept  laughing  and  saying : 

"  Whatever  is  mother  thinking  of  !  All  of  a  sudden  to  marry 
both  of  us  off  !  As  if  there  were  no  lads  in  our  village,  forsooth  ! 
Some  rubbishy  fellow  may  come,  and  goodness  knows  who  he 
may  be  ! " 

The  girls  were  wrapped  up  in  pelisses,  but  for  all  that  they 
felt  the  cold. 

"  I  say,  Prascovia !  the  frost's  skinning  me  alive.  Well,  if 
our  bridegroom  *  doesn't  come  quick,  we  shall  be  frozen  to 
death  here  !  " 

"  Don't  go  talking  nonsense,  Mashka;  as  if  suitors  f  gene- 
rally turned  up  in  the  forenoon.  Why  it's  hardly  dinner-time 
yet ! " 

"But  I  say,  Prascovia!  if  only  one  comes,  which  of  us  will 
he  take  ? " 

"  Not  you,  you  stupid  goose  !  " 

"  Then  it  will  be  you,  I  suppose  !  " 

"  Of  course  it  will  be  me  !  " 

"  You,  indeed !  there  now,  have  done  talking  stuff  and 
treating  people  like  fools  !  " 

Meanwhile,  Frost  had  numbed  the  girl's  hands,  so  our 
damsels  folded  them  under  their  dress,  and  then  went  on 
quarrelling  as  before. 

"  What,  you  fright  !  you  sleepy-face  !  you  abominable  shrew ! 
why,  you  don't  know  so  much  as  how  to  begin  weaving :  and  as 
to  going  on  with  it,  you  haven't  an  idea !  " 

"  Aha,  boaster  !  and  what  is  it  you  know  ?  Why,  nothing  at 
all  except  to  go  to  out  to  merry-makings  and  lick  your  lips  there. 
We'll  soon  see  which  he'll  take  first!" 

While  the  girls  went  on  scolding  like  that,  they  began  to 
freeze  in  downright  earnest.  Suddenly  they  both  cried  out  at 
once : 

Svzhenoi-ryazhenoi.  t  Zhenikhi, 

is 


226  RUSSIA  N  FOLK-  TALES. 

"Whyeveris  he  so  long  coming.  Do  you  know,  you've  tur;i 
ed  quite  blue  !  " 

Now,  a  good  way  off,  Frost  had  begun  cracking,  snapping 
nis  fingers,  and  leaping  from  fir  to  fir.  To  the  girls  it  sounded 
as  if  some  one  was  coming. 

"  Listen,  Prascovia !  He's  coming  at  last,  and  with  bells, 
too  ! " 

"  Get  along  with  you  !  I  won't  listen  ;  my  skin  is  peeling 
with  cold." 

"  And  yet  you're  still  expecting  to  get  married  !  " 

Then  they  began  blowing  on  their  fingers. 

Nearer  and  nearer  came  Frost.  At  length  he  appeared  or 
the  pine,  above  the  heads  of  the  girls,  and  said  to  them  : 

"  Are  ye  warm,  maidens  ?  Are  ye  warm,  pretty  ones  ?  Are 
ye  warm,  my  darlings  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Frost,  it's  awfully  cold !  we're  utterly  perished ! 
We're  expecting  a  bridegroom,  but  the  confounded  fellow  has 
disappeared." 

Frost  slid  lower  down  the  tree,  cracked  away  more,  snapped 
his  fingers  oftener  than  before. 

"  Are  ye  warm,  maidens  ?     Are  ye  warm,  pretty  ones  ? 

"  Get  along  with  you  !  Are  you  blind  that  you  can't  see  our 
hands  and  feet  are  quite  dead  ?  " 

Still  lower  descended  Frost,  still  more  put  forth  his  might,* 
and  said* 

"  Are  ye  warm,  maidens  ?  " 

"  Into  the  bottomless  pit  with  you  !  Out  of  sight,  accursed 
one  !  "  cried  the  girls — and  became  lifeless  forms,  f 

Next  morning  the  old  woman  said  to  her  husband  : 

"  Old  man,  go  and  get  the  sledge  harnessed  ;  put  an  armful 
of  hay  in  it,  and  take  some  sheepskin  wraps.  I  daresay  the 
girls  are  half-dead  with  cold.  There's  a  terrible  frost  outside  ! 
And,  mind  you,  old  greybeard,  do  it  quickly  !  " 

Before  the  old  man  could  manage  to  get  a  bite  he  was  out  of 
doors  and  on  his  way.     When   he  came  to  where  his  daughters 

*  SiP no  priudaril,  mightily  smote  harder.  t  Ohoslenyeli,  were  petrified. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  227 

were,  be  found  them  dead.  So  he  lifted  the  girls  on  to  the 
sledge,  wrapped  a  blanket  round  them,  and  covered  them  up 
with  a  bark  mat.  The  old  woman  saw  him  from  afar,  ran  out 
to  meet  him,  and  called  out  ever  so  loud : 

"  Where  are  the  girls  ? " 

'•  In  the  sledge." 

The  old  woman  lifted  the  mat,  undid  the  blanket,  and  found 
the  girls  both  dead. 

Then,  like  a  thunderstorm,  she  broke  out  against  her  hus- 
band, abusing  him  saying  : 

"  What  have  you  done,  you  old  wretch  ?  You  have  destroy- 
ed my  daughters,  the  children  of  my  own  flesh  and  blood,  my 
never-enough-to-be-gazed-on  seedlings,  my  beautiful  berries  !  I 
will  thrash  you  with  the  tongs  ;  I  will  give  it  you  with  the  stove- 
rake." 

"  That's  enough,  you  old  goose  !  You  flattered  yourself 
you  were  going  to  get  riches,  but  your  daughters  were  too  stiff- 
necked.  How  was  I  to  blame  ?  it  was  you  yourself  would 
have  it." 

The  old  woman  was  in  a  rage  at  first,  and  used  bad  lan- 
guage ;  but  afterwards  she  made  it  up  with  her  step-daughter, 
and  they  all  lived  together  peaceably,  and  thrived,  and  bore  no 
malice.  A  neighbor  made  an  offer  of  marriage,  the  wedding 
was  celebrated,  and  Marfa  is  now  living  happily.  The  old  man 
frightens  his  grandchildren  with  (stories  about)  Frost,  and 
doesn't  let  them  have  their  own  way. 

In  a  variant  from  the  Kursk  Government  (Afanasief  IV. 
No.  42.  b),  the  step-daughter  is  left  by  her  father  "  in  the 
open  plain."  There  she  sits,  "trembling  and  silently  offering 
up  a  prayer."  Frost  draws  near,  intending  "  to  smite  her 
and  to  freeze  her  to  death."  But  when  he  says  to  her, 
"  Maiden,  maiden,  I  am  Frost  the  Red-Nosed,"  she  replies 
"  Welcome,  Frost ;  doubtless  God  has  sent  you  for  my  sinful 
soul."  Pleased  by  her  'wise  words,"  Frost  throws  a  warm 
cloak  over  her,  and  afterwards  presents  her  with  "  robes 


228  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

embroidered  with  silver  and  gold,  and  a  chest  containing  a 
rich  do-яту."  The  girl  put  on  the  robes,  and  appears  "  such 
a  beauty  ! "  Then  she  sits  on  the  chest  and  sings  songs. 
Meantime  her  step-mother  is  baking  cakes  and  preparing 
for  her  funeral.  After  a  time  her  father  sets  out  in  search 
of  her  dead  body.  But  the  dog  beneath  the  table  barks — 
"  Taff  !  Taff !  The  master's  daughter  in  silver  and  gold  by 
the  wedding  party  is  borne  along,  but  the  mistress's  daugh- 
ter is  wooed  by  none  !  "  In  vain  does  its  mistress  throw  it 
a  cake,  and  order  it  to  modify  its  remarks.  It  eats  the 
cake,  but  it  repeats  its  offensive  observations,  until  the  step- 
daughter appears  in  all  her  glory.  Then  the  old  woman's 
own  daughter  is  sent  afield.  Frost  comes  to  have  a  look 
at  his  new  guest,  expecting  "  wise  words  "  from  her  too.  But 
as  none  are  forthcoming,  he  waxes  wroth,  and  kills  her. 
When  the  old  man  goes  to  fetch  her,  the  dog  barks — "  Taff  ! 
Taff !  The  master's  daughter  will  be  borne  along  by  the 
bridal  train,  but  the  bones  of  the  mistress's  daughter  are 
being  carried  in  a  bag,"  and  continues  to  bark  in  the  same 
strain  until  the  yard-gates  open.  The  old  woman  runs  out 
to  greet  her  daughter,  and  "  instead  of  her  embraces  a  cold 
corpse." 

To  the  Russian  peasants,  it  should  be  observed,  Moroz, 
our  own  Jack  Frost,  is  a  living  personage.  On  Christmas 
Eve  it  is  customary  for  the  oldest  man  in  each  family  to 
take  a  spoonful  of  kissel,  a  sort  of  pudding,  and  then,  having 
put  his  head  through  the  window,  to  cry : 

"  Frost,  Frost,  come  and  eat  kissel !  Frost,  Frost,  do 
not  kill  our  oats  !  drive  our  flax  and  hemp  deep  into  :he 
ground." 

The  Tcheremisses  have  similar  ideas,  and  are  afraid  of 
knocking  the  icicles  off  their  houses,  thinking  that,  if  they 
do  so,  Frost  will  wax  wroth  and  freeze  them  to  death.     In 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  228 

one  of  the  Skazkas,  a  peasant  goes  out  one  day  to  a  field 
of  buckwheat,  and  finds  it  all  broken  down.  He  goes 
home,  and  tells  the  bad  news  to  his  wife,  who  says,  "  It  is 
Frost  who  has  done  this.  Go  and  find  him,  and  make  him 
pay  for  the  damage  !  "  So  the  peasant  goes  into  the  forest 
and,  after  wandering  about  for  some  time,  lights  upon  a 
path  which  leads  him  to  a  cottage  made  of  ice,  covered 
with  snow,  and  hung  with  icicles.  He  knocks  at  the  door, 
and  out  comes  an  old  man — "  all  white."  This  is  Frost, 
who  presents  him  with  the  magic  cudgel  and  table-cloth 
which  work  wonders  in  so  many  of  the  tales.*  In  another 
story,  a  peasant  meets  the  Sun,  the  Wind,  and  the  Frost. 
He  bows  to  all  three,  but  adds  an  extra  salutation  to  the 
Wind.  This  enrages  the  two  others,  and  the  Sun  cries  out 
that  he  will  burn  up  the  peasant.  But  the  Wind  says,  "  I 
will  blow  cold,  and  temper  the  heat."  Then  the  Frost 
threatens  to  freeze  the  peasant  to  death,  but  the  Wind 
comforts  him,  saying,  "  I  will  blow  warm,  and  will  not  let 
you  be  hurt."  f 

Sometimes  the  Frost  is  described  by  the  people  as  a 
mighty  smith  who  forges  strong  chains  with  which  to  bind 
the  earth  and  the  waters — as  in  the  saying  "  The  Old  One 
has  built  a  bridge  without  axe  and  without  knife,"  i.e.,  the 
river  is  frozen  over.  Sometimes  Moroz-Treskun,  the  Crack- 
ling Frost,  is  spoken  of  without  disguise  as  the  preserver  of 
the  hero  who  is  ordered  to  enter  a  bath  which  has  been 
heated  red-hot.  Frost  goes  into  the  bath,  and  breathes 
with  so  icy  a  breath  that  the  heat  of  the  building  turns  at 
once  to  cold.t 

*  Afanasief,  P.  V.  S.  i.  318-19.  t  Ibid.  i.  312. 

t  As  with  Der  Frostige  in  the  German  story  of  "Die  sechs  Diener,"  KM,  No.  1341 
p.  519,  and  "The  Man  with  the  White  Hat,"  in  that  of  "  Sechse  komraen  durch  die 
game  Welt,"  No.  71,  p-  295,  and  their  variants  in  different  lands.  See  Grimm,  iii. 
p.  122. 


230  R  USSIA  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

The  story  in  which  Frost  so  singularly  figures  is  one 
which  is  known  in  many  lands,  and  of  which  many  variants 
are  current  in  Russia.  The  jealous  hatred  of  a  stepmother, 
who  exposes  her  stepdaughter  to  some  great  peril,  has  been 
made  the  theme  of  countless  tales.  What  gives  its  special 
importance,  as  well  as  its  poetical  charm,  to  the  skazka 
which  has  been  quoted,  is  the  introduction  of  Frost  as  the 
power  to  which  the  stepmother  has  recourse  for  the  further- 
ance of  her  murderous  plans,  and  by  which  she,  in  the 
persons  of  her  own  daughters,  is  ultimately  punished.  We 
have  already  dealt  with  one  specimen  of  the  skazkas 
of  this  class,  the  story  of  Vasilissa,  who  is  sent  to  the 
Baba  Yaga's  for  a  light.  Another,  still  more  closely  con- 
nected with  that  of  "  Frost,"  occurs  in  Khudyakof's  col- 
lection.* 

A  certain  woman  ordered  her  husband  (says  the  story) 
to  make  away  with  his  daughter  by  a  previous  marriage. 
So  he  took  the  girl  into  the  forest,  and  left  her  in  a  kind  of 
hut,  telling  her  to  prepare  some  soup  while  he  was  cutting 
wood.  "  At  that  time  there  was  a  gale  blowing.  The  old 
man  tied  a  log  to  a  tree  ;  when  the  wind  blew,  the  log  rat- 
tled. She  thought  the  old  man  was  going  on  cutting  wood, 
but  in  reality  he  had  gone  away  home." 

When  the  soup  was  ready,  she  called  out  to  her  father 
to  come  to  dinner.  No  reply  came  from  him,  "  but  there 
was  a  human  head  in  the  forest,  and  it  replied,  '  I'm  com- 
ing immediately ! '  And  when  the  Head  arrived,  it  cried, 
(  Maiden,  open  the  door  !  '  She  opened  '  it.  '  Maiden, 
Maiden  !  lift  me  over  the  threshold  ! '  She  lifted  it  over. 
'Maiden,  Maiden!  put  the  dinner  on  the  table!'  She 
did  so,  and  she  and  the  Head  sat  down  to  dinner.     When 

*  No.  13,  "  The  Stepmother's  Daughter  and  the  Stepdaughter,"   written  down  ia 
Kazan. 


MYTHOL  OGICA  L .  231 

they  h-ad  dined,  '  Maiden,  Maiden  ! '  said  the  Head, '  take 
me  off  the  bench  !  '  She  took  it  off  the  bench,  and  cleared 
the  table.  It  lay  down  to  sleep  on  the  bare  floor ;  she  lay 
on  the  bench.  She  fell  asleep,  but  it  went  into  the  forest 
after  its  servants.  The  house  became  bigger  ;  servants, 
horses,  everything  one  could  think  of  suddenly  appeared. 
The  servants  came  to  the  maiden,  and  said,  '  Get  up  I 
it's  time  to  go  for  a  drive ! '  So  she  got  into  a  carriage 
with  the  Head,  but  she  took  a  cock  along  with  her.  She 
told  the  cock  to  crow  ;  it  crowed.  Again  she  told  it  to 
crow  ;  it  crowed  again.  And  a  third  time  she  told  it  to 
crow.  When  it  had  crowed  for  the  third  time,  the  Head 
fell  to  pieces,  and  became,  a  heap  of  golden  coins."* 

Then  the  stepmother  sent  her  own  daughter  into  the 
forest.  Everything  occurred  as  before,  until  the  Head  ar- 
rived. Then  she  was  so  frightened  that  she  tried  to  hide 
herself,  and  she  would  do  nothing  for  the  Head,  which  had 
to  dish  up  its  own  dinner,  and  eat  it  by  itself.  And  so 
"  when  she  lay  down  to  sleep,  it  ate  her  up." 

In  a  story  in  Chudinsky's  collection,  the  stepdaughter 
is  sent  by  night  to  watch  the  rye  in  an  ovin,\  or  corn-kiln. 
Presently  a  stranger  appears  and  asks  her  to  marry  him. 
She  replies  that  she  has  no  wedding-clothes,  upon  which 
he  brings  her  everything  she  asks  for.  But  she  is  very 
careful  not  to  ask  for  more  than  one  thing  at  a  time,  and 
so-  the  cock  crows  before  her  list  of  indispensable  neces- 


•This  is  a  thoroughly  Buddhistic  idea.  According  to  Buddhist  belief,  the  treasure 
which  has  belonged  to  anyone  in  a  former  existence  may  come  to  him  in  the  shape 
of  a  man  who,  when  killed,  turns  to  gold.  The  first  story  of  the  fifth  book  of  the 
'"Panchatantra,"  is  based  upon  an  idea  of  this  kind.  A  man  is  told  in  a  vision  to  kill  a 
monk.  He  does  so,  and  the  monk  becomes  a  heap  of  gold.  A  barber,  seeing  this, 
kills  several  monks,  but  to  no  purpose.     See  Benfey's  Introduction,  pp.  477-8. 

t  For  an  account  of  the  ovin,  and  the  respect  paid  to  it  or  to  the  demons  supposed 
to  haunt  it,  see  "  The  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  p.  257 


232  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

saries  is  exhausted.    The  stranger  immediately  disappears, 
and  she  carries  off  her  presents  in  triumph. 

The  next  night  her  stepsister  is  sent  to  the  ovin,  and 
the  stranger  appears  as  before,  and  asks  her  to  marry  him. 
She,  also,  replies  that  she  has  no  wedding-clothes,  and  he 
offers  to  supply  her  with  what  she  wants.  Whereupon, 
instead  of  asking  for  a  number  of  things  one  after  the 
other,  she  demands  them  all  at  once — "  Stockings,  garters, 
a  petticoat,  a  dress,  a  comb,  earrings,  a  mirror,  soap,  white 
paint  and  rouge,  and  everything  which  her  stepsister  had 
got."     Then  follows  the  catastrophe. 

The  stranger  brought  her  everything,  all  at  once. 

"  Now  then,"  says  he,  "will  you  marry  me  now?  " 

"Wait  a  bit,"  said  the  stepmother's  daughter,  "  I'll  wash 
and  dress,  and  whiten  myself  and  rouge  myself,  and  then  I'll 
marry  you.  "  And  straightway  she  set  to  work  washing  and 
dressing — and  she  hastened  and  hurried  to  get  all  that  done — 
she  wanted  so  awfully  to  see  herself  decked  out  as  a  bride. 
By-and-by  she  was  quite  dressed — but  the  cock  had  not  yet 
crowed. 

"  Well,  maiden  !  "  says  he,  "  will  you  marry  me  now  ?  " 

"  I'm  quite  ready,"  says  she. 

Thereupon  he  tore  her  to  pieces.* 

There  is  one  other  of  those  personifications  of  natural 
forces  which  play  an  active  part  in  the  Russian  tales, 
about  which  a  few  words  may  be  said.  It  often  happens 
that  the  heroine-stealer  whom  the  hero  of  the  story  has  to 
overcome  is  called,  not  Koshchei  nor  the  Snake,  but  Vik- 
hor,  f  the  whirlwind.     Here  is  a  brief  analysis  of  part  of 

•  Chudinsky,   No.    13,      "  The   Daughter  and  the   Stepdaughter."      From  th« 
Nijegorod  Government. 

t   Vikkr1  or  V^Uchor'  from  viT,  to  whirl  or  twist. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  233 

one  of  the  tales  in  which  this  elementary  abducer  figures. 
There  was  a  certain  king,  whose  wife  went  out  one  day  to 
walk  n  the  garden.  "  Suddenly  a  gale  (vyeter)  sprang  up. 
In  the  gale  was  the  Vikhor-bird.  Vikhor  seized  the 
Queen,  and  carried  her  off."  She  left  three  sons,  and 
they,  when  they  came  to  man's  estate,  said  to  their  father 
— "Where  is  our  mother?  If  she  be  dead,  show  us  her 
grave  ;  if  she  be  living,  tell  us  where  to  find  her." 

"  I  myself  know  not  where  your  mother  is,"  replied  the 
King.     (i  Vikhor  carried  her  off." 

"  Well  then,"  they  said,  "  since  Vikhor  carried  her  off, 
and  she  is  alive,  give  u?  your  blessing.  We  will  go  in 
search  of  our  mother." 

All  three  set  out,  but  only  the  youngest,  Prince  Vasily, 
succeeded  in  climbing  the  steep  hill,  whereon  stood  the 
palace  in  which  his  mother  and  Vikhor  lived.  Entering  it 
during  Vikhor's  absence,  the  Prince  made  himself  known 
to  his  mother,  "  who  straightway  gave  him  to  eat,  and  con- 
cealed him  in  a  distant  apartment,  hiding  him  behind  a 
number  of  cushions,  so  that  Vikhor  might  not  easily  dis- 
cover him."  And  she  gave  him  these  instructions.  "  If 
Vikhor  comes,  and  begins  quarrelling,  don't  come  forth ; 
but  if  he  takes  to  chatting,  come  forth  and  say,  '  Hail 
father ! '  and  seize  hold  of  the  little  finger  of  his  right 
hand,  and  wherever  he  flies  do  you  go  with  him." 

Presently  Vikhor  came  flying  in,  and  addressed  the 
Queen  angrily.  Prince  Vasily  remained  concealed  until 
his  mother  gave  him  a  hint  to  come  forth.  This  he  did, 
and  then  greeted  Vikhor,  and  caught  hold  of  his  right  little 
finger.  Vikhor  tried  to  shake  him  off,  flying  first  about 
the  house  and  then  out  of  it,  but  all  in  vain.  At  last  Vik- 
hor, after  soaring  on  high,  struck  the  ground,  and  fell  to 
pieces,  becoming  a  fine  yellow  sand.     "  But  the  little  fin- 


234  R  If  SSI  A  N  FOLK-  TALES. 

ger  remained   in    the    possession  of   Prince  Vasily,  who 
scraped  together  the  sand  and  burnt  it  in  the  stove."  * 

With  a  mention  of  two  other  singular  beings  who  occur 
in  the  Skazkas,  the  present  chapter  may  be  brought  to  a 
close.  The  first  is  a  certain  Morfei  (Morpheus?)  who 
figures  in  the  following  variant  of  a  well-known  tale. 

There  was  a  king,  and  he  had  a  daughter  with  whom  a 
general  who  lived  over  the  way  fell  in  love.  But  the  king 
would  not  let  him  marry  her  unless  he  went  where  none 
had  been,  and  brought  back  thence  what  none  had  seen. 
After  much  consideration  the  general  set  out  and  travelled 
"  over  swamps,  hill,  and  rivers.*'  At  last  he  reached  a 
wood  in  which  was  a  hut,  and  inside  the  hut  was  an  old 
crone.  To  her  he  told  his  story,  after  hearing  which,  she 
cried  out,  "  Ho,  there  !  Morfei,  dish  up  the  meal !  "  and 
immediately  a  dinner  appeared  of  which  the  old  crone 
made  the  general  partake.  And  next  day  "  she  presented 
that  cook  to  the  general,  ordering  him  to  serve  the  general 
honorably,  as  he  had  served  her.  The  general  took  the 
cook  and  departed."  By-and-by  he  came  to  a  river  and 
was  appealed  to  for  food  by  a  shipwrecked  crew.  "  Mor- 
fei, give  them  to  eat !  "  he  cried,  and  immediately  excellent 
viands  appeared,  with  which  the  mariners  were  so  pleased 
that  they  gave  the  general  a  magic  volume  in  exchange 
for  his  cook — who,  however,  did  not  stay  with  them  but 
secretly  followed  his  master.  A  little  later  the  general 
found  another  shipwrecked  crew,  who  gave  him,  in  ex- 
change for  his  cook,  a  sabre  and  a  towel,  each  of  magic 
power.  Then  the  general  returned  to  his  own  city,  and 
his   magic  properties  enabled  him  to   convince   the  king 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  82.     The  story  ends  in  the  same  way  as  that  of  Norka.     See 
дирга.  p.  73. 


MYTHOLOGICAL.  235 

that  he  was  an  eligible  suitor  for  the  hand  of  the  Prin- 
cess.* 

The  other  is  a  mysterious  personage  whose  name  is 
"Oh  ! "  The  story  in  which  he  appears  is  one  with  which 
many  countries  are  familiar,  and  of  which  numerous  ver- 
sions are  to  be  found  in  Russia.  A  father  sets  out  with 
his  boy  for  "the  bazaar,"  hoping  to  find  a  teacher  there 
who  will  instruct  the  child  in  such  science  as  enables  peo- 
ple "  to  work  little,  and  feed  delicately,  and  dress  well." 
After  walking  a  long  way  the  man  becomes  weary  and 
exclaims,  "Oh!  I'm  so  tired!"  Immediately  there  ap- 
pears "  an  old  magician,"  who  says — 

"  Why  do  you  call  me  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  call  you,"  replies  the  old  man.  "  I  don't 
even  know  who  you  are." 

"  My  name  is  Oh,"  says  the  magician,  "and  you  cried 
'  Oh  ! '     Where  are  you  taking  that  boy  ?  " 

The  father  explains  what  it  is  he  wants,  and  the  magi- 
cian undertakes  to  give  the  boy  the  requisite  education, 
charging  "one  assignat  rouble"  for  a  year's  tuition. f 

The  teacher,  in  this  story,  is  merely  called  a  magician  ; 
but  as  in  other  Russian  versions  of  it  his  counterpart  is 
always  described  as  being  demoniacal,  and  is  often  openly 
styled  a  devil,  it  may  be  assumed  that  Oh  belongs  to  the 
supernatural  order  of  beings.  It  is  often  very  difficult, 
however,  to  distinguish  magicians  from  fiends  in  storyland, 
he  same  powers  being  generally  wielded,  and  that  for  the 

*  Khudyakof,  No-  86.  Morfei  the  Cook  is  merely  a  development  of  the  magic 
cudgel  which  in  so  many  stories  (e.g.  the  sixth  of  the  Calmuck  tales)  is  often  ex- 
changed for  other  treasures  by  its  master,  to  whom  it  soon  returns — it  being  itself  a 
degraded  form  of  the  hammer  of  Thor,  the  lance  of  Indra,  which  always  came  back 
to  the  divine  hand  that  had  hurled  it. 

t  Khudyakof,  No-  19.  The  rest  of  the  story  is  that  of  "  Der  Gaudief  un  sin 
Meester."  Grimm's  KM.  N11.68.  (See  also  vol.  ili.  p.  1 18  of  that  work,  where  a 
long  list  is  given  of  similar  stories  in  various  bnguaires.) 


236  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

same  purposes,  by  the  one  set  of  beings  as  by  the  other. 
Of  those  powers,  and  of  the  end  to  which  the  stories  repre- 
sent them  as  being  turned,  some  mention  will  be  made  in 
the  next  chapter. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT,  237 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MAGIC   AND    WITCHCRAFT. 

Mosr  of  the  magical  "  properties  "  of  the  "  skazka-drama,"' 
closely  resemble  those  which  have  already  been  rendered 
familiar  to  us  by  well-known  folk-tales.  Of  such  as  these 
— of  "caps  of  darkness,"  of  "seven-leagued  boots,"  of 
"  magic  cudgels,"  of  "  Fortunatus's  purses,"  and  the  like  * 
—it  is  unnecessary,  for  the  present,  to  say  more  than  that 
hey  are  of  as  common  occurrence  in  Slavonic  as  in  other 
i  tories.  But  there  are  some  among  them  which  materially 
differ  from  their  counterparts  in  more  western  lands,  and 
are  therefore  worthy  of  special  notice.  To  the  latter  class 
belong  the  Dolls  of  which  mention  has  already  been  made, 
and  the  Waters  of  Life  and  Death  of  which  I  am  now 
about  to  speak. 

A  Water  of  Life  plays  an  important  part  in  the  folk- 
tales of  every  land. t     When  the  hero  of  a  "  fairy  story  " 

*  About  which,  see  Professor  Wilson's  note  on  Somadeva's  story  of  the  "  Origin 
of  Pataliputra,"  "  Essays,"  i.  p.  168-9,  with  Dr.  Rost's  reference  to  L.  Deslong- 
charaps,  "  Essai  sur  les  Fables  Indiennes,"  Paris,  183S,  p.  35,  and  Grasse,  "  Sagen- 
kreise  des  Mittelalters,"  Leipsig,  1842,  p.  191.  See  also  the  numerous  reference* 
given  by  Grimm,  KM.  iii.  pp.  168-9. 

t  As  well  as  in  all  the  mythologies.  For  the  magic  draught  of  the  tairy-story 
appears  to  be  closely  connected  with  the  Greek  ambrosia,  the  Vedic  soma  or  amrita, 
the  Zend  haoma. 


238  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

has  been  done  to  death  by  evil  hands,  his  resuscitation  by 
means  of  a  healing  and  vivifying  lotion  or  ointment*  fol- 
lows almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  And  by  common  con- 
sent the  Raven  (or  some  sort  of  crow)  is  supposed  to 
knc  where  this  invaluable  specific  is  to  be  found, f  a 
knowledge  which  it  shares  with  various  supernatural  beings 
as  well  as  with  some  human  adepts  in  magic,  and  some- 
times with  the  Snake.  In  all  these  matters  the  Russian 
and  the  Western  tales  agree,  but  the  Skazka  differs  from 
most  stories  of  its  kind  in  this  respect,  that  it  almost  in- 
variably speaks  of  two  kinds  of  magic  waters  as  being  em- 
ployed for  the  restoration  of  life.  We  have  already  seen 
in  the  story  of  "  Marya  Morevna,"  that  one  of  these,  some- 
times called  the  mertvaya  voda — the  "  dead  water,"  or 
"Water  of  Death'' — when  sprinkled  over  a  mutilated 
corpse,  heals  all  its  wounds ;  while  the  other,  which  bears 
the  name  of  the  zhivaya  voda, —  the  "living  water,"  or 
"  Water  of  Life  " — endows  it  once  more  with  vitality. 

[In  a  Norse  tale  in  Asbjornsen's  new  series,  No.  72,  mention  is  made  of  a  Water 
of  Death,  as  opposed  to  a  Water  of  Life.  The  Death  Water  (Doaseiis  Vatui)  throws 
all  whom  it  touches  into  a  magic  sleep,  from  which  only  Life  Water  {Ltvsens  Vand) 
can  rouse  them  (p.  57).  In  the  Ramayana,  Hanuman  fetches  four  different  kinds  of 
herbs  in  order  to  resuscitate  his  dead  monkeys  :  "  the  first  restore  the  dead  to  life,  the 
second  drive  away  all  pain,  the  third  join  broken  parts,  the  fourth  cure  all  wounds, 
&c."     Talboys  Wheeler,  "  History  of  India,"  ii.  368.     In  the  Egyptian  story  already 


*  A  water,  "  Das  Wasser  des  Lebens,"  in  two  German  stories  (Grimm,  Nos.  97 
and  97,  and  hi-  p  178),  and  in  many  Greek  tales  (Hahn,  Nos.  32,  37,  &c).  An  dt\ 
or  ointment  in  the  Norse  tale  (Asbjornsen  and  Мое,  No.  35,  Dasent,  No.  3).  A  bal 
sam  in  Gaelic  tales,  in  which  a  "  Vessel  of  Balsam  "  often  occurs.  According  to  Mr. 
Campbell  ("West  Highland  Tales,"  i.  p.  218),  "  Ballan  Iocshlaint,  teat,  of  ichor,  of 
health,  seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  words."  The  juice  squeezed  frcm  the  leaves 
of  a  tree  in  a  modern  Indian  tale  ("  Old  Deccau  Days,"  p.  139). 

t  The  mythical  bird  Garuda,  the  Indian  original  of  the  Roc  of  the  Arabian  Nights, 
was  similarly  connected  with  the  Amrita.  See  the  story  of  Garuda  and  the  Nagas  in 
Brockhaus's  translation  of  the  "  Kathasaritsagara,"  ii.  pp.  98-105.  On  the  Vedic 
falcon  which  brings  the  Soma  down  to  earth,  see  Kuhn's  "  Herabkunft  des  Feuers," 
pp.  138-142. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  23Я 

mentioned  (at  p.  113),  S-t.ou's  corpse  quivers  and  opens  its  eyes  -vhen  hi;  heart  has 
become  saturated  with  1  healing  liquid.  But  he  does  not  actually  come  to  1  fe  till  the 
remainder  of  the  liquid  iias  been  poured  down  his  throat. 

In  a  Kirghiz  story,  quoted  by  Bronevsky,*  a  golden-haired  hero  finds,  after  long 
search,  the  maiden  to  whom  he  had  in  very  early  life  been  betrothed.  Her  father  has 
him  murdered.  She  persuades  the  murderer  to  show  her  the  body  of  her  dead  love, 
and  weeps  over  it  bitterly.  A  spirit  appears  and  tells  her  to  sprinkle  it  with  water 
from  a  neighboring  well.  The  well  is  very  deep,  but  she  induces  the  murderer  to 
allow  her  to  lower  him  into  it  by  means  of  her  remarkably  long  hair.  He  descends 
and  hands  up  to  her  a  cup  of  water.  Having  received  it,  she  cuts  off  her  hair,  and 
lets  the  murderer  drop  and  be  drowned.  Then  she  sprinkles  her  lover's  corpse  with 
the  water,  and  he  revives.  But  he  lives  only  three  days.  She  refuses  to  survive 
him,  and  is  buried  by  his  side.  From  the  graves  of  the  lovers  spring  two  willows, 
which  m.ngle  their  boughs  as  if  in  an  embrace.  And  the  neighbors  set  up  nearthe 
spot  three  statues,  his  and  hers  and  her  nurse's. 

Such  is  the  story,  says  Bronevsky,  which  the  Kirghiz  tell  with  respect  to  some 
statues  of  unknown  origin  which  stand  (or  used  to  stand)  near  the  Ayaguza,  a  river 
falling  into  Lake  Balkhash.  A  somewhat  similar  Armenian  story  is  quoted  by  Hax- 
thausen  in  his  Transcaucasia  (p.  350  of  the  English  translation). 

In  the  Kalevala,  when  Lemmenkainen  has  been  torn  to  pieces,  his  mother  collects 
his  scattered  remains,  and  by  a  dexterous  synthetical  operation  restores  him  to  physical 
unity.  But  the  silence  of  death  still  possesses  him.  Then  she  entreats  the  Bee  to 
bring  vivifying  honey.  After  two  fruitless  journeys,  the  Bee  succeeds  in  bringing  back 
honey  "  from  the  cellar  of  the  Creator."  When  this  has  been  applied,  the  dead  man 
returns  to  life,  sits  up,  and  says  u.  the  words  of  the  Russian  heroes — "  How  long  I 
have  slept!  "  t 

Here  is  another  instance  of  a  life-giving  operation  of  a  double  nature.  There  is  a 
well-known  Indian  story  about  four  suitors  for  the  hand  of  one  girl.  She  dies,  but  is 
restored  to  life  by  one  of  her  lovers,  who  happens  one  day  to  see  a  dead  child  resus- 
citated, and  learns  how  to  perform  similar  miracles.  In  two  Sanskrit  versions  of  the 
"  Vetalapanchavinsati,"  t  as  well  as  in  the  Hindi  version,  §  the  life-giving  charm 
consists  in  a  spell  taken  from  a  book  of  magic.  But  in  the  Tamil  version,  the  process 
is  described  as  being  of  a  different  and  double  nature.  According  to  it,  the  mother  of 
the  murdered  child  "  by  the  charm  called  sisupabam  re-created  the  body,  and,  by  the 
incantation  called  sanjivi,  restored  it  to  life."  The  suitor,  having  learnt  the  charm 
and  the  incantation,  "took  the  bones  and  the  ashes  (of  the  dead  girl),  and  having 
created  out  of  them  the  body,  by  virtue  of  the  charm  sisupabam,  gave  life  to  that 

*  In  the  Russian  periodical,  "  Otechestvennuiya  Zapiski,"  vol.  43  (for  1S30)  pp. 
152-6. 

\   Schiefners's  translation,  1S52,  pp.  So,  81. 

X  In  that  attributed  to  Sivadasa,  tale  2  (Lassen's  "  Anthologia  Sanscritica,'' pp. 
16-10),  and  in  the  "  Kathasaritsagara,"  chap,  lxxvi.  See  Brockhaus's  summary  in 
the  "  Berichte  der  phil.  hist.  Classe  der  K6n.  Sachs.  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaf- 
ten,"  December  3,  1853,  pp.  194-5. 

§  The  "  Biital-Pachls(,"  translated  by  Ghulam  Mohammad  Mnnshi,  Bombajj 
868,  pp,  23-24. 


240  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

body  by  the  sanjivi  incantation."  According  to  Mr.  Babington,  "  Sanjlvi  is  defined 
oy  the  Tamuls  to  be  a  medicine  which  restores  to  life  by  dissipating  a  mortal  swoon. 
,  .  In  the  text  the  word  is  used  for  the  art  of  using  this  medicine."  *] 

As  a  general  rule,  the  two  waters  of  which  mention  is 
made  in  the  Skazkas  possess  the  virtues,  and  are  employed 
in  the  manner,  mentioned  above  ;  but  there  are  cases  in 
which  their  powers  are  of  a  different  nature.  Sometimes 
we  meet  with  two  magic  fluids,  one  of  which  heals  all 
wounds,  and  restores  sight  to  the  blind  and  vigor  to  the 
cripple,  while  the  other  destroys  all  that  it  touches.  Some- 
times, also,  recourse  is  had  to  magic  draughts  of  two  kinds, 
the  one  of  which  strengthens  him  who  quaffs  it,  while  the 
other  produces  the  opposite  effect.  Such  liquors  as  these 
are  known  as  the  "  Waters  of  Strength  and  Weakness," 
and  are  usually  described  as  being  stowed  away  in  the 
cellar  of  some  many-headed  Snake.  For  the  Snake  is 
often  mentioned  as  the  possessor,  or  at  least  the  guardian, 
of  magic  fluids.  Thus  one  of  the  Skazkas  f  speaks  of  a 
wondrous  garden,  in  which  are  two  springs  of  healing  and 
vivifying  water,  and  around  that  garden  is  coiled  like  a 
ring  a  mighty  serpent.  Another  tells  how  a  flying  Snake 
brought  two  heroes  to  a  lake,  into  which  they  flung  a  green 
bough,  and  immediately  the  bough  broke  into  flame  and 
was  consumed.  Then  it  took  them  to  another  lake,  into 
which  they  cast  a  mouldy  log.  And  the  log  straightway 
began  to  put  forth  buds  and  blossoms. $ 

In  some  cases  the  magic  waters  are  the  property,  not 
of  a  Snake,  but  of  one  of  the  mighty  heroines  who  so  often 
occur  in  these  stories,  and  who  bear  so  great  a  resemblance 


*  B.  G.  Babington's  translation  of  "  The  Vedala  Cadai,"  p.  32.  contained  in  the 
"  Miscellaneous  Translations  "  of  the  Oriental  Translation  Fund,  1831,  vol.  i.  pt.  iv 
pp.  32  and  67. 

t  Afanasief,  P.V.S.  ii.  551,  %  Afanasief,  viii.  p.  a* 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  241 

to  Brynhildr,  as  well  in  other  respects  as  in  that  of  her  en- 
chanted sleep.  Thus  in  one  of  the  Skazkas  *  an  aged 
king  dreams  that  "  beyond  thrice  nine  lands,  in  the  thirtieth 
country,  there  is  a  fair  maiden  from  whose  hands  and  feet 
water  is  flowing,  of  which  water  he  who  drinks  will  become 
thirty  years  younger."  His  sons  go  forth  in  search  of  this 
youth-giving  liquid,  and,  after  many  adventures,  the  young- 
est is  directed  to  the  golden  castle  in  which  lives  the  "fair 
maiden,"  whom  his  father  has  seen  in  his  vision.  He  has 
been  told  that  when  she  is  awake  her  custom  is  to  divert 
herself  in  the  green  fields  with  her  Amazon  host — "for 
nine  days  she  rambles  about,  and  then  for  nine  days  she 
sleeps  a  heroic  slumber."  The  Prince  hides  himself  among 
the  bushes  near  the  castle,  and  sees  a  fair  maiden  come 
out  of  it  surrounded  by  an  armed  band,  "  and  all  the  band 
consists  of  maidens,  each  one  more  beautiful  than  the 
other.  And  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  never-enough-to- 
be-gazed-upon,  is  the  Queen  herself."  For  nine  days  he 
watches  the  fair  band  of  Amazons  as  they  ramble  about. 
On  the  tenth  day  all  is  still,  and  he  enters  the  castle.  In 
the  midst  of  her  slumbering  guards  sleeps  the  Queen  on  a 
couch  of  down,  the  healing  water  flowing  from  her  hands 
and  feet.  With  it  he  fills  two  flasks,  and  then  he  retires. 
When  the  Queen  awakes,  she  becomes  conscious  of  the 
theft  and  pursues  the  Prince.  Coming  up  with  him,  she 
slays  him  with  a  single  blow,  but  then  takes  compassion 
on  him,  and  restores  him  to  life. 

In  another  version  of  the  story,  the  precious  fluid  is 
contained  in  a  flask  which  is  hidden  under  the  pillow  of 
the  slumbering  "Tsar  Maiden."  The  Prince  steals  it 
and  flees,  but  he  bears  on  him  the  weight  of  sin,  and  so, 


•  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  5  6. 
16 


242  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

when  he  tries  to  clear  the  fence  which  girds  the  enchanted 
castle,  his  horse  strikes  one  of  the  cords  attached  to  it, 
and  the  spell  is  broken  which  maintains  the  magic  sleep 
in  which  the  realm  is  locked.  The  Tsar  Maiden  pursues 
the  thief,  but  does  not  succeed  in  catching  him.  He  is 
killed,  however,  by  his  elder  brothers,  who  "  cut  him  into 
small  pieces,"  and  then  take  the  flask  of  magic  water  to 
their  father.  The  murdered  prince  is  resuscitated  by  the 
mythical  bird  known  by  the  name  of  the  Zha,7'-Ptitsa,  which 
collects  his  scattered  fragments,  puts  them  together,  and 
sprinkles  them  first  with  "  dead  water  "  and  then  with  "  live- 
water," — conveyed  for  that  purpose  in  its  beak — after  which 
the  prince  gets  up,  thanks  his  reviver,  and  goes  his  way.* 
In  one  of  the  numerous  variants  of  the  story  in  which 
a  prince  is  exposed  to  various  dangers  by  his  sister — who 
is  induced  to  plot  against  his  life  by  her  demon  lover,  the 
Snake — the  hero  is  sent  in  search  of  "  a  healing  and  a 
vivifying  water,"  preserved  between  two  lofty  mountains 
which  cleave  closely  together,  except  during  "  two  or  three 
minutes  "  of  each  day.  He  follows  his  instructions,  rides 
to  a  certain  spot,  and  there  awaits  the  hour  at  which  the 
mountains  fly  apart.  "  Suddenly  a  terrible  hurricane  arose, 
a  mighty  thunder  smote,  and  the  two  mountains  were 
torn  asunder.  Prince  Ivan  spurred  his  heroic  steed,  flew 
like  a  dart  between  the  mountains,  dipped  two  flasks  in 
the  waters,  and  instantly  turned  back."  He  himself  es- 
capes safe  and  sound,  but  the  hind  legs  of  his  horse  are 
caught  between  the  closing  cliffs,  and  smashed  to  pieces. 
The  magic  waters,  of  course,  soon  remedy  this  temporary 
inconvenience. t 

*  Afanasief,  vii-  No,  5  a.     For  the  Zhar-Ptitsa.  see  iiifra,  p.  285. 
t  Afanasief,  vi.  p.  249.     For  a  number  of  interesting  legends,  collected  from  tht 
most  distant  parts  of  the  world,  about  grinding  mountains  and  crashing  cliffs,  &c, 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  213 

In  a  Slovak  version  of  this  story,  a  murderous  mother 
sends  her  son  to  two  mountains,  each  of  which  is  cleft 
open  once  in  every  twenty-four  hours — the  one  opening  at 
midday  and  the  other  at  midnight ;  the  former  disclosing 
the  Water  of  Life,  the  latter  the  Water  of  Death.*  In  a 
similar  story  from  the  Ukraine,  mention  is  made  of  two 
springs  of  healing  and  life-giving  water,  which  are  guarded 
by  iron-beaked  ravens,  and  the  way  to  which  lies  between 
grinding  hills.  The  Fox  and  the  Hare  are  sent  in  quest 
of  the  magic  fluid.  The  Fox  goes  and  returns  in  safety, 
but  the  Hare,  on  her  way  back,  is  not  in  time  quite  to 
clear  the  meeting  cliffs,  and  her  tail  is  jammed  in  between 
them.     Since  that  time,  hares  have  had  no  tails,  f 

On  the  Waters  of  Strength  and  Weakness  much  stress 
.s  laid  in  many  of  the  tales  about  the  many-headed  Snakes 
which  carry  off  men's  wives  and  daughters  to  their  metallic 
castles.  In  one  of  these,  for  instance,  the  golden-haired 
Queen  Anastasia  has  been  torn  away  by  a  whirlwind  from 
her  husband  "Tsar  Byel  Byelyanin  "  [the  White  King]. 
As  in  the  variant  of  the  story  already  quoted, %  her  sons  go 
in  search  of  her,  and  the  youngest  of  them,  after  finding 
three  palaces — the  first  of  copper,  the  second  of  silver,  the 
third  of  gold,  each  containing  a  princess  held  captive  by 

see  Tylor's  "  Primitive  Culture,"  pp.  313-16.  After  quoting  three  mythic  descrip- 
tions found  among  the  Karens,  the  Algonquins,  and  the  Aztecs,  Mr.  Tylor  remarks, 
"  On  the  suggestion  of  this  group  of  solar  conceptions  and  that  of  Maui's  death,  we 
may  perhaps  explain  as  derived  from  a  broken-down  fancy  cf  solar-myth,  that  famous 
episode  of  Greek  legend,  where  the  good  ship  Argo  passed  between  the  Symplegades, 
those  two  huge  cliffs  that  opened  and  closed  again  with  swift  and  violent  collision." 

Several  of  the  Modern  Greek  stories  are  very  like  the  skazka  mentioned  above. 
In  one  of  these  (Hahn,  ii.  p.  334),  a  Lamia  guards  the  water  of  life  (abavaro  vspo) 
which  flows  within  a  rock  ;  in  another  (ii.  p.  280)  a  mountain  opens  at  midday,  and 
several  springs  are  disclosed,  each  of  which  cries  "  Draw  from  me!  "  but  the  only 
эпе  which  is  life-giving  is  that  to  which  a  bee  flies. 

*  Wenzig,  p.  148.       t  Afanasief,  P.V.S.  ii.  3153.        X  See  above,  p.  233. 


244  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Vikhor,  the  whirlwind — comes  to  a  fourth  palace  gleaming 
with  diamonds  and  other  precious  stones.  In  it  he  discovers 
his  long-lost  mother,  who  gladly  greets  him,  and  at  once 
takes  him  into  Vikhor's  cellar.  Here  is  the  account  of  what 
ensued. 

Well,  they  entered  the  cellar;  there  stood  two  tubs  of  water, 
the  one  on  the  right  hand,  the  other  on  the  left.  Says  the 
Queen — 

"Take  a  draught  of  the  water  that  stands  on  the  right 
hand."     Prince  Ivan  drank  of  it. 

"  Now  then,  how  strong  do  you  feel  ?  "  said  she. 

"  So  strong  that  I  could  upset  the  whole  palace  with  one 
hand,"  he  replied. 

"  Come  now,  drink  again." 

The  Prince  drank  once  more. 

"  How  strong  do  you  feel  now  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Why  now,  if  I  wanted,  I  could  give  the  whole  world  a 
jolt." 

"  Oh  that's  plenty  then !  Now  make  these  tubs  change 
places — that  which  stands  on  the  right,  set  on  the  left :  and 
that  which  is  on  the  left,  change  to  the  right." 

Prince  Ivan  took  the  tubs  and  made  them  change  places. 
Says  the  Queen — 

"  See  now,  my  dear  son  ;  in  one  of  these  tubs  is  the  "  Water 
of  Strength,"  in  the  other  is  the  "  Water  of  Weakness."  *  He 
who  drinks  of  the  former  becomes  a  mighty  hero,  but  he  who 
drinks  of  the  second  loses  all  his  vigor.  Vikhor  always  quaffs 
the  Strong  Water,  and  places  it  on  the  right-hand  side  ;  there- 
fore you  must  deceive  him,  or  you  will  never  be  able  to  hold 
out  against  him." 

The  Queen  proceeds  to  tell  her  son  that,  when  Vikhor 
comes  home,  he  must  hide  beneath  her  purple  cloak,  and 

•  Silnaya  voda  or  potent  water,  and  bezsilnaya  voda,  or  impotent  water  (sua  » 
ttrength). 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  245 

watch  for  an  opportunity  of  seizing  her  gaoler's  magic  mace.* 
Vikhor  will  fly  about  till  he  is  tired,  and  will  then  have 
recourse  to  what  he  supposes  is  the  "  Strong  Water ;  "  this 
will  render  him  so  feeble  that  the  Prince  will  be  able  to  kill 
him.  Having  received  these  instructions,  and  having  been 
warned  not  to  strike  Vikhor  after  he  is  dead,  the  Prince 
conceals  himself.  Suddenly  the  day  becomes  darkened, 
the  palace  quivers,  and  Vikhor  arrives ;  stamping  on  the 
ground,  he  becomes  a  noble  gallant,  who  enters  the  palace, 
"  holding  in  his  hands  a  battle  mace."  This  Prince  Ivan 
seizes,  and  a  long  struggle  takes  place  between  him  and 
Vikhor,  who  flies  away  with  him  over  seas  and  into  the 
clouds.  At  last,  Vikhor  becomes  exhausted  and  seeks  the 
place  where  he  expects  to  find  the  invigorating  draught 
on  which  he  is  accustomed  to  rely.  The  result  is  as  fol- 
lows : 

Dropping  right  into  his  cellar,  Vikhor  ran  to  the  tub  which 
stood  on  the  right,  and  began  drinking  the  Water  of  Weakness. 
But  Prince  Ivan  rushed  to  the  left,  quaffed  a  deep  draught  of 
the  Water  of  Strength,  and  became  the  mightiest  hero  in  the 
whole  world.  Then  seeing  that  Vikhor  was  perfectly  enfeebled, 
he  snatched  from  him  his  keen  faulchion,  and  with  a  single 
blow  struck  off  his  head.     Behind  him  voices  began  to  cry : 

"  Strike  again  !  strike  again  !  or  he  will  come  to  life  !  " 

"  No,"  replied  the  Prince,  "a  hero's  hand  does  not  strike 
twice,  but  finishes  its  work  with  a  single  blow."  And  straight- 
way he  lighted  a  fire,  burnt  the  head  and  the  trunk,  and  scattered 
the  ashes  to  the  winds."  f 

The  part  played  by  the  Water  of  Strength  in  this  story 
may  be  compared  with  "the  important  share  which  the 

•  Palitsa  =  a  cudgel,  etc.  In  the  variant  of  the  story  quoted  in  the  preceding 
section  the  prince  seized  Vikhor  by  the  right  little  finger,  mizinets.  PaleU  means  ■ 
finger.    The  similarity  of  the  two  words  may  have  led  to  a  confusion  of  ideas. 

t  Afanasief,  vii.  pp.  97-103. 


246  R USSIAN  FOLK-  TALES. 

exhilarating  juice  of  the  Soma-plant  assumes  in  bracing 
[rtdra  for  his  conflict  with  the  hostile  powers  in  the  atmos- 
phere," and  Vikhor's  sudden  debility  with  that  of  Indra 
when  the  Asura  Namuchi  "  drank  up  Indra's  strength 
along  with  a  draught  of  wine  and  soma."  * 

Sometimes,  as  has  already  been  remarked,  one  of  the 
two  magic  waters  is  even  more  injurious  than  the  Water 
of  Weakness,  f  The  following  may  be  taken  as  a  speci- 
men of  the  stories  in  which  there  is  introduced  a  true 
Water  of  Death — one  of  those  deadly  springs  which  bear 
the  same  relation  to  the  healing  and  vivifying  founts  that 
the  enfeebling  bears  to  the  strengthening  water.  The 
Baba  Yaga  who  figures  in  it  is,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  re- 
placed by  a  Snake  in  the  variant  to  which  allusion  has 
already  been  made. 

The  Blind  Man  and  the  Cripple.  % 

In  a  certain  kingdom  there  lived  a  king  and  queen  ;  they  had  a 
son,  Prince  Ivan,  and  to  look  after  that  son  was  appointed  a 
tutor  named  Katoma.  §  The  king  and  queen  lived  to  a  great 
age,  but  then  they  fell  ill,  and  despaired  of  ever  recovering.  So 
they  sent  for  Prince  Ivan  and  strictly  enjoined  him  : 

"  When  we  are  dead,  do  you  in  everything  respect  and  obey 
Katoma.  If  you  obey  him,  you  will  prosper  ;  but  if  you  choose 
to  be  disobedient,  you  will  perish  like  a  fly." 

The  next  day  the  king  and  queen  died.  Prince  Ivan  buried 
his  parents,  and  took  to  living  according  to  their  instructions. 
Whatever  he  had  to  do,  he  always  consulted  his  tutor  about  it. 

*  Muir's  "  Sanskrit  Texts,"  v.  p.  258  and  p.  94.  See,  also  Mannhardt's  "  Germ. 
Mythen,"  pp.  96-97. 

t  Being  as  destrucb  Те  as  the  poison  which  was  created  during  the  churning  ol 
the  Amrita. 

J  Afanasief,  v.  No.  31,. 

§  In  the  original  he  is  generally  designated  as  Katbma — dyhd?  ka,  dttbovaya 
thhpka,  "  Kat6ma-governor,  oaken-hat,"  Not  being  able  to  preserve  the  assonance, 
I  have  dropped  the  greater  part  of  his  title. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  247 

Some  time  passed  by.  The  Prince  attained  to  man  s  estate, 
and  began  to  think  about  getting  married.  So  one  day  he  went 
to  his  tutor  and  said  : 

"  Katoma,  I'm  tired  of  living  alone,  I  want  to  marry." 

"Well,  Prince  !  what's  to  prevent  you  ?  you're  of  an  age  at 
which  it's  time  to  think  about  a  bride.  Go  into  the  great  hall. 
There's  a  collection  there  of  the  portraits  of  all  the  princesses  in 
the  world;  look  at  them  and  choose  for  yourself;  whichever 
pleases  you,  to  her  send  a  proposal  of  marriage." 

Prince  Ivan  went  into  the  great  hall,  and  began  examining 
the  portraits.  And  the  one  that  pleased  him  best  was  that  of  the 
Princess  Anna  the  Fair — such  a  beauty !  the  like  of  her  wasn't 
to  be  found  in  the  whole  world  !  Underneath  her  portrait  were 
written  these  words  : 

"  If  any  one  asks  her  a  riddle,  and  she  does  not  guess  it,  him 
shall  she  marry ;  but  he  whose  riddle  she  guesses  shall  have  his 
head  chopped  off. 

Prince  Ivan  read  this  inscription,  became  greatly  afflicted,  and 
went  off  to  his  tutor. 

"  I've  been  in  the  great  hall,"  says  he,  "and  I  picked  out  for 
my  bride  Anna  the  Fair ;  only  I  don't  know  whether  it's  possible 
to  win  her." 

"Yes,  Prince;  she's  hard  to  get.  If  you  go  alone,  you 
won't  win  her  anyhow.  But  if  you  will  take  me  with  you,  and 
if  you  will  do  what  I  tell  you,  perhaps  the  affair  can  be  man- 
aged." 

Prince  Ivan  begged  Katoma  to  go  with  him,  and  gave  his 
word  of  honor  to  obey  him  whether  in  joy  or  grief. 

Well,  they  got  ready  for  the  journey  and  set  off  to  sue  for  the 
hand  of  the  Princess  Anna  the  Fair.  They  travelled  for  one 
year,  two  years,  three  years,  and  traversed  many  countries. 
Says  Prince  Ivan — 

"We've  been  travelling  all  this  time,  uncle,  and  now  we're 
approaching  the  country  of  Princess  Anna  the  Fair ;  and  yet  we 
don't  know  what  riddle  to  propound." 

"  We  shall  manage  to  think  of  one  in  good  time,"   replied 


248  R USSIAN  FOLK- TALES. 

Katoma.  They  went  a  little  farther.  Katoma  was  looking  clown 
on  the  road,  and  on  it  lay  a  purse  full  of  money..  He  lifted  it  up 
directly,  poured  all  the  money  out  of  it  into  his  own  purse,  and 
said — 

"  Here's  a  riddle  for  you,  Prince  Ivan !  When  you  come 
into  the  presence  of  the  Princess,  propound  a  riddle  to  her  in 
these  words  :  "  As  we  were  coming  along,  we  saw  Good  lying  on 
the  road,  and  we  took  up  the  Good  with  Good,  and  placed  it  in 
our  own  Good  !  "  That  riddle  she  won't  guess  in  a  lifetime  ;  but 
any  other  one  she  would  find  out  directly.  She  would  only  have 
to  look  into  her  magic-book,  and  as  soon  as  she  had  guessed  it, 
she'd  order  your  head  to  be  cut  off." 

Well,  at  last  Prince  Ivan  and  his  tutor  arrived  at  the  lofty 
palace  in  which  lived  the  fair  Princess.  At  that  moment  she 
happened  to  be  out  on  the  balcony,  and  when  she  saw  the  new- 
comers, she  sent  out  to  know  whence  they  came  and  what  they 
wanted.     Prince  Ivan  replied — 

"I  have  come  from  such-and-such  a  kingdom,  and  I  wish  to 
sue  for  the  hand  of  the  Princess  Anna  the  Fair." 

When  she  was  informed  of  this,  the  Princess  gave  orders  that 
the  Prince  should  enter  the  palace,  and  there  in  the  presence  of 
all  the  princes  and  boyars  of  her  council  should  propound  his 
riddle. 

"  I've  made  this  compact,"  she  said.  "  Anyone  whose  riddle 
I  cannot  guess,  him  I  must  marry.  But  anyone  whose  riddle  I 
can  guess,  him  I  may  put  to  death." 

"  Listen  to  my  riddle,  fair  princess  !  "  said  Prince  Ivan.  "  As 
we  came  along,  we  saw  Good  lying  on  the  road,  and  we  took  up 
the  Good  with  Good,  and  placed  it  in  our  own  Good." 

Princess  Anna  the  Fair  took  her  magic-book,  and  began 
turning  over  its  leaves  and  examining  the  answers  of  riddles. 
She  went  right  through  the  book,  but  she  didn't  get  at  the  mean- 
ing she  wanted.  Thereupon  the  princes  and  boyars  of  her 
council  decided  that  the  Princess  must  marry  Prince  Ivan.  She 
wasn't  at  all  pleased,  but  there  was  no  help  for  it,  and  so  she 
began  to  get  ready  for  the  wedding,     Meanwhile  she  cons'dered 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  24!, 

within  herself  how  she  could  spin  out  the  time  and  do  away  with 
the  bridegroom,  and  she  thought  the  best  way  would  be  to  over- 
whelm him  with  tremendous  tasks. 

So  she  called  Prince  Ivan  and  said  to  him — 

"  My  dear  Prince  Ivan,  my  destined  husband!  It  is  meet 
that  we  should  prepare  for  the  wedding  ;  pray  do  me  this  small 
service.  On  such  and  such  a  spot  of  my  kingdom  there  stands 
a  lofty  iron  pillar.  Carry  it  into  the  palace  kitchen,  and  chop  it 
into  small  chunks  by  way  of  fuel  for  the  cook." 

"  Excuse  me,  Princess,"  replied  the  prince.  "  Was  it  to  chop 
fuel  that  I  came  here  ?  Is  that  the  proper  sort  of  employment 
for  me  ?  I  have  a  servant  for  that  kind  of  thing,  Katoma  dyadka, 
of  the  oaken  shapka" 

"  The  Prince  straightway  called  for  his  tutor,  and  ordered 
him  to  drag  the  iron  pillar  into  the  kitchen,  and  to  chop  it  into 
small  chunks  by  way  of  fuel  for  the  cook.  Katoma  went  to  the 
spot  indicated  by  the  Princess,  seized  the  pillar  in  his  arms, 
brought  it  into  the  palace  kitchen,  and  broke  it  into  little  pieces ; 
but  four  of  the  iron  chips  he  put  into  his  pocket,  saying — 

"  They'll  prove  useful  by-and-by  !  " 

Next  day  the  princess  says  to  Prince  Ivan — 

"  My  dear  Prince,  my  destined  husband!  to-morrow  we  have 
to  go  to  the  wedding.  I  will  drive  in  a  carriage,  but  you  should 
ride  on  a  heroic  steed,  and  it  is  necessary  that  you  should 
break  him  in  beforehand." 

"  I  break  a  horse  in  myself!  I  keep  a  servant  for  that." 

Prince  Ivan  called  Katoma,  and  said — 

"  Go  into  the  stable  and  tell  the  grooms  to  bring  forth  the 
heroic  steed  ;  sit  upon  him  and  break  him  in  ;  to-morrow  I've 
got  to  ride  him  to  the  wedding." 

Katoma  fathomed  the  subtle  device  of  the  Princess,  but,  with- 
out stopping  long  to  talk,  he  went  into  the  stable  and  told  the 
grooms  to  bring  forth  the  heroic  steed.  Twelve  grooms  were 
mustered,  they  unlocked  twelve  locks,  opened  twelve  doors,  and 
brought  forth  a  magic  horse  bound  in  twelve  chains  of  iron 
Katoma  went  up  to  him.     No  sooner  had  he  managed  to  seat 


250  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

himself  than  the  magic  horse  leaped  up  from  the  ground  and 
soared  higher  than  the  forest — higher  than  the  standing  forest, 
lower  than  the  flitting  cloud.  Firm  sat  Katoma,  with  one  hand 
grasping  the  mane ;  with  the  other  he  took  from  his  pocket  an 
iron  chunk,  and  began  taming  the  horse  with  it  between  the  ears. 
When  he  had  used  up  one  chunk,  he  betook  himself  to  another  ; 
when  two  were  used  up,  he  took  to  a  third ;  when  three  were 
used  up,  the  fourth  came  into  play.  And  so  grievously  did  he 
punish  the  heroic  steed  that  it  could  not  hold  out  any  longer, 
out  cried  aloud  with  a  human  voice — 

"  Batyushka  Katoma  !  don't  utterly  deprive  me  of  life  in  the 
white  world  !  Whatever  you  wish,  that  do  you  order  :  all  shall 
be  done  according  to  your  will !  " 

"  Listen,  О  meat  for  dogs  !  "  answered  Katoma;  "to-morrow 
Prince  Ivan  will  ride  you  to  the  wedding.  Now  mind  !  when  the 
grooms  bring  you  out  into  the  wide  courtyard,  and  the  Prince 
goes  up  to  you  and  lays  his  hand  on  you,  do  you  stand  quietly, 
not  moving  so  much  as  an  ear.  And  when  he  is  seated  on  your 
back,  do  you  sink  into  the  earth  right  up  to  your  fetlocks,  and, 
then  move  under  him  with  a  heavy  step,  just  as  if  an  immeasur- 
able weight  had  been  laid  upon  your  back." 

The  heroic  steed  listened  to  the  order  and  sank  to  earth 
scarcely  alive.  Katoma  seized  him  by  the  tail,  and  flung  him 
close  to  the  stable,  crying — 

"  Ho  there  !  coachmen  and  grooms  ;  carry  off  this  dog's- 
meat  to  its  stall !  " 

The  next  day  arrived  ;  the  time  drew  near  for  going  to  the 
wedding.  The  carriage  was  brought  round  for  the  Princess,  and 
the  heroic  steed  for  Prince  Ivan.  The  people  were  gathered 
together  from  all  sides — a  countless  number.  The  bride  and 
bride-groom  came  out  from  the  white  stone  halls.  The  Princess 
gV.  -to  the  carriage  and  waited  to  see  what  would  become  of 
Prince  Ivan  ;  whether  the  magic  horse  would  fling  his  curls  to 
the  wind,  and  scatter  his  bones  across  the  open  plain.  Prince 
Ivan  approached  the  horse,  laid  his  hand  upon  its  back,  placed 
his  foot  in  the  stirrup-  -fhe  horse  stood  just  as  if  petrified,  didn't 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  251 

so  much  as  wag  an  ear!  The  Prince  got  on  its  back,  the  magic 
horse  sank  into  the  earth  up  to  its  fetlocks.  The  twelve  chains 
were  taken  off  the  horse,  it  began  to  move  with  an  even  heavy 
pace,  while  the  sweat  poured  off  it  just  like  hail. 

"What  a  hero!  What  immeasurable  strength!"  cried  the 
people  as  they  gazed  upon  the  Prince. 

So  the  bride  and  bridegroom  were  married,  and  then  they 
began  to  move  out  of  the  church,  holding  each  other  by  the  hand. 
The  Princess  took  it  into  her  head  to  make  one  more  trial  of 
Prince  Ivan,  so  she  squeezed  his  hand  so  hard  that  he  could  not 
bear  the  pain.  His  face  became  suffused  with  blood,  his  eyes 
disappeared  beneath  his  brows. 

"A  fine  sort  of  hero  you  are!"  thought  the  Princess. 
"  Your  tutor  has  tricked  me  splendidly  ;  but  you  sha'n't  get  off 
for  nothing !  " 

Princess  Anna  the  Fair  lived  for  some  time  with  Prince  Ivan 
as  a  wife  ought  to  live  with  a  god-given*  husband,  nattered  him 
in  every  way  in  words,  but  in  reality  never  thought  of  anything 
except  by  what  means  she  might  get  rid  of  Katoma.  With  the 
Prince,  without  the  tutor,  there'd  be  no  difficulty  in  settling 
matters  !  she  said  to  herself.  But  whatever  slanders  she  might 
invent,  Prince  Ivan  never  would  allow  himself  to  be  influenced 
by  what  she  said,  but  always  felt  sorry  for  his  tutor.  At  the  end 
of  a  year  he  said  to  his  wife  one  day — 

"  Beauteous  Princess,  my  beloved  spouse  !  I  should  like 
to  go  with  you  to  my  own  kingdom." 

"  By  all  means,"  replied  she,  "  let  us  go.  "  I  myself  have 
long  been  wishing  to  see  your  kingdom." 

Well  they  got  ready  and  went  off  ;  Katoma  was  allotted  the 
post  of  coachman  They  drove  and  drove,  and  as  they  drove 
along  Prince  Ivan  went  to  sleep.  Suddenly  the  Princess  Anna 
the  Fair  awoke  him,  uttering  loud  complaints — 

"  Listen,  Prince,  you're  always  sleeping,  you  hear  nothing ! 

*  Bogodanny  (bog  =  God  ;  daf,  davaf  =togive).  One  of  the  Russian  equivalents 
for  our  hideous  "  father-in-law "  is  "god-given  father "  (bogodanny  otets),  and  fo» 
"  mother-in  -law,"  bogodanny  mat  "  or  "  God-given  mother."     (Dahl.) 


252  RUSSIAN  FOLK- TALES. 

But  your  tutor  doesn't  obey  me  a  bit,  drives  the  horses  on  pur 
pose  over  hill  and  dale,  just  as  if  he  wanted  to  put  an  end  to  us 
both.  I  tried  speaking  him  fair,  but  he  jeered  at  me.  I  won't  go 
on  living  any  longer  if  you  don't  punish  him  ! " 

Prince  Ivan,  'twixt  sleeping  and  waking,  waxed  very  wroth 
with  his  tutor,  and  handed  him  over  entirely  to  the  Princess, 
saying — 

"  Deal  with  him  as  you  please  !  " 

The  Princess  ordered  his  feet  to  be  cut  off.  Katoma  sub- 
mitted patiently  to  the  outrage. 

"  Very  good,"  he  thinks  ;  "  I  shall  suffer,  it's  true ;  but  the 
Prince  also  will  know  what  to  lead  a  wretched  life  is  like  !  " 

When  both  of  Katoma's  feet  had  been  cut  off,  the  Princess 
glanced  around,  and  saw  that  a  tall  tree-stump  stood  on  one  side  ; 
so  she  called  her  servants  and  ordered  them  to  set  him  on  that 
stump.  But  as  for  Prince  Ivan,  she  tied  him  to  the  carriage  by 
a  cord,  turned  the  horses  round,  and  drove  back  to  her  own 
kingdom.  Katoma  was  left  sitting  on  the  stump,  weeping  bitter 
tears. 

"  Farewell,  Prince  Ivan  !  "  he  cries  ,"  you  won't  forget  me  !  " 

Meanwhile  Prince  Ivan  was  running  and  bounding  behind 
the  carriage.  He  knew  well  enough  by  this  time  what  a  blun- 
der he  had  made,  but  there  was  no  turning  back  for  him.  When 
the  Princess  Anna  the  Fair  arrived  in  her  kingdom,  she  set 
Prince  Ivan  to  take  care  of  the  cows.  Everyday  he  went  afield 
with  the  herd  at  early  morn,  and  in  the  evening  he  drove  them 
back  to  the  royal  yard.  At  that  hour  the  Princess  was  always 
sitting  on  the  balcony,  and  looking  out  to  see  that  the  number 
of  the  cows  were  all  right.* 

Katoma  remained  sitting  on  the  stump  one  day,  two  days, 
three  days,  without  anything  to  eat  or  drink.  To  get  down  was 
utterly  impossible,  it  seemed  as  if  he  must  die  of  starvation. 
But  not  far  away  from  that  place  there  was  a  dense  forest.  In 
that  forest  was  living  a  mighty  hero  who  was  quite  blind.     The 

*  Four  lines  are  omitted  here.     See  A.  de  Gubernatis,       Zool.  Mythology,"  i.  18  ц 
where  a  solar  explanation  of  the  whole  story  will  be  found. 


MAGIC  AND   WITCHCRAFT.  253 

only  way  by  which  he  could  get  himself  food  was  this  :  whenever 
he  perceived  by  the  sense  of  smell  that  any  animal  was  running 
past  him, whether  a  hare,  or  a  fox,  or  a  bear,  he  immediately  start- 
ed in  chase  of  it,  caught  it — and  dinner  was  ready  for  him.  The 
hero  was  exceedingly  swift-footed,  and  there  was  not  a  single 
wild  Least  which  could  run  away  from  him.  Well,  one  day  it 
fell  out  thus.  A  fox  slunk  past ;  the  hero  heard  it,  and  was 
after  it  directly.  It  ran  up  to  the  tall  stump,  and  turned  sharp 
off  on  one-side  ;  but  the  blind  hero  hurried  on,  took  a  spring, 
and  thumped  his  forehead  against  the  stump  so  hard  that  he 
knocked  the  stump  out  by  the  roots.  Katoma  fell  to  the  ground, 
and  asked : 

"  Who  are  you  ?  " 

"  I'm  a  blind  hero.  I've  been  living  in  the  forest  for  thirty 
years.  The  only  way  I  can  get  my  food  is  this  :  to  catch  some 
game  or  other,  and  cook  it  at  a  wood  fire.  If  it  had  not  been 
for  that,  I  should  have  been  starved  to  death  long  ago  ! " 

"  You  haven't  been  blind  all  your  life  ?  " 

"  No,  not  all  my  life  ;  but  Princess  Anna  the  Fair  put  my 
eyes  out ! " 

"  There  now,  brother  !  "  says  Katoma  ;  "  and  it's  thanks  to 
her,  too,  that  I'm  left  here  without  any  feet.  She  cut  them  both 
off,  the  accursed  one  !  " 

The  two  heroes  had  a  talk,  and  agreed  to  live  together,  and 
join  in  getting  their  food.     The  blind  man  says  to  the  lame  : 

"  Sit  on  my  back  and  show  me  the  way  ;  I  will  serve  you 
with  my  feet,  and  you  me  with  your  eyes." 

So  he  took  the  cripple  and  carried  him  home,  and  Katoma 
sat  on  his  back,  kept  a  look  out  all  round,  and  cried  out  from 
time  to  time  :  a  Right !     Left !     Straight  on !  "  and  so  forth. 

Well,  they  lived  some  time  in  the  forest  in  that  way,  and 
caught  hares,  foxes,  and  bears  for  their  dinner.  One  day  the 
cripple  says — 

"  Surely  we  can  never  go  on  living  all  our  lives  without  a 
soul  [to  speak  to].  I  have  heard  that  in  such  and  svch  a  town 
lives  a  rich  merchant  who  has  a  daughter  ;  and  tha*   merchant's 


254  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

daughter  is  exceedingly  kind  to  the  poor  and  crippled.  She 
Ejives  alms  to  everyone.  Suppose  we  carry  her  off,  brother,  and 
let  her  live  here  and  keep  house  for  us." 

The  blind  man  took  a  cart,  seated  the  cripple  in  it,  and  rat- 
tled it  into  the  town,  straight  into  the  rich  merchant's  courtyard. 
The  merchant's  daughter  saw  them  out  of  window,  and  immedi- 
ately ran  out,  and  came  to  give  them  alms.  Approaching  the 
cripple,  she  said  : 

"  Take  this,  in  Christ's  name,  poor  fellow  !  " 

He  [seemed  to  be  going]  to  take  the  gift,  but  he  seized  her 
by  the  hand,  pulled  her  into  the  cart,  and  called  to  the  blind 
man,  who  ran  off  with  it  at  such  a  pace  that  no  one  could  catch 
him,  even  on  horseback.  The  merchant  sent  people  in  pursuit 
— but  no,  they  could  not  come  up  with  him. 

The  heroes  brought  the  merchant's  daughter  into  their  forest 
hut,  and  said  to  her : 

"  Be  in  the  place  of  a  sister  to  us,  live  here  and  keep  house 
for  us  ;  otherwise  we  poor  sufferers  will  have  no  one  to  cook 
our  meals  or  wash  our  shirts.  God  won't  desert  you  if  you  do 
that ! " 

The  merchant's  daughter  remained  with  them.  The  heroes 
respected  her,  loved  her,  acknowledged  her  as  a  sister.  They 
used  to  be  out  hunting  all  day,  but  their  adopted  sister  was 
always  at  home.  She  looked  after  all  the  housekeeping,  pre- 
pared the  meals,  washed  the  linen. 

But  after  a  time  a  Baba  Yaga  took  to  haunting  their  hut  and 
sucking  the  breasts  of  the  merchant's  daughter.  No  sooner 
have  the  heroes  gone  off  to  the  chase,  than  the  Baba  Yaga  is  there 
in  a  moment.  Before  long  the  fair  maiden's  face  began  to  fall 
away,  and  she  grew  weak  and  thin.  The  blind  man  could  see 
nothing,  but  Katoma  remarked  that  things  weren't  going  well. 
He  spoke  about  it  to  the  blind  man,  and  they  went  together  to 
their  adopted  sister,  and  began  questioning  her.  But  the  Baba 
Yaga  had  strictly  forbidden  her  to  tell  the  truth.  For  a  long 
time  she  was  afraid  to   acquaint  them  with  her  trouble,  for  a 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  255 

long  time  she  held  out,  but  at  last  her  brothers  talked  her  over 
and  she  told  them  everything  without  reserve. 

"  Every  time  you  go  away  to  the  chase,"  says  she,  "  there 
immediately  appears  in  the  cottage  a  very  old  woman  with  a 
most  evil  face,  and  long  grey  hair.  And  she  sets  me  to  dress 
her  head,  and  meanwhile  she  sucks  my  breasts." 

.  "  Ah !  "  says  the  blind  man,  "  that's  a  Baba  Yaga.  Wait  a 
bit ;  we  must  treat  her  after  her  own  fashion.  To-morrow  we 
won't  go  to  the  chase,  but  we'll  try  to  entice  her  and  lay  hands 
upon  her ! " 

So  next  morning  the  heroes  didn't  go  out  hunting. 

"  Now  then,  Uncle  Footless  !  "  says  the  blind  man,  "  you 
get  under  the  bench,  and  lie  there  ever  so  still,  and  I'll  go  into 
the  yard  and  stand  under  the  window.  And  as  for  you,  sister, 
when  the  Baba  Yaga  comes,  sit  down  just  here,  close  by  the 
window ;  and  as  you  dress  her  hair,  quietly  separate  the  locks 
and  throw  them  outside  through  the  window.  Just  let  me  lay 
bold  of  her  by  those  grey  hairs  of  hers  !  " 

What  was  said  was  done.  The  blind  man  laid  hold  of  the 
Baba  Yaga  by  her  grey  hair,  and  cried — 

"  Ho  there,  Uncle  Katoma !  Come  out  from  under  the 
bench,  and  lay  hold  of  this  viper  of  a  woman,  while  I  go  into 
the  hut ! " 

The  Baba  Yaga  hears  the  bad  news  and  tries  to  jump  up  to 
get  her  head  free.  (Where  are  you  off  to  ?  That's  no  go,  sure 
enough  /*)  She  tugs  and  tugs,  but  cannot  do  herself  any  good  ! 

Just  then  from  under  the  bench  crawled  Uncle  Katoma,  fell 
upon  her  like  a  mountain  of  stone,  took  to  strangling  her  until 
the  heaven  seemed  to  her  tr  disappear,  f  Then  into  the  cot- 
tage bounded  the  blind  man,  crying  to  the  cripple — 

"  Now  we  must  heap  up  a  great  pile  of  wood,  and  consume 
this  accursed  one  with  fire,  and  fling  her  ashes  to  the  wind  ! " 

The  Baba  Yaga  began  imploring  them  : 

"My  fathers  !  my  darlings  !  forgive  me.  I  will  do  all  that  is 
right." 

*  These  ejaculations  belong  to  the  story-teller. 
t  laterally,  "  Seemed  to  her  as  small  as  a  lamb." 


256  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"Very  good,  old  witch  !  Then  show  us  the  fountain  of  heal- 
ing and  life-giving  water  !  "  said  the  heroes. 

"  Only  don't  kill  me,  and  I'll  show  it  you  directly !  " 

Well,  Katoma  sat  on  the  blind  man's  back.  The  blind  man 
took  the  Baba  Yaga  by  her  back  hair,  and  she  led  them  into  the 
depths  of  the  forest,  brought  them  to  a  well,*  and  said — 

"  That  is  the  water  that  cures  and  gives  life." 

"  Look  out,  Uncle  Katoma  !  "  cried  the  blind  man  ;  "  don't 
make  a  blunder.  If  she  tricks  us  now  we  shan't  get  right  all 
our  lives ! " 

Katoma  cut  a  green  branch  off  a  tree,  and  flung  it  into  the 
well.  The  bough  hadn't  so  much  as  reached  the  water  before 
it  all  burst  into  a  flame  ! 

"  Ha !  so  you're  still  up  to  your  tricks,"  said  the  heroes,  and 
began  to  strangle  the  Baba  Yaga,  with  the  intention  of  flinging 
her,  the  accursed  one,  into  the  fiery  fount.  More  than  ever 
did  the  Baba  Yaga  implore  for  mercy,  swearing  a  great  oath 
that  she  would  not  deceive  them  this  time. 

"  On  my  troth  I  will  bring  you  to  good  water,"  says  she. 

The  heroes  consented  to  give  her  one  more  trial,  and  she 
took  them  to  another  fount. 

Uncle  Katoma  cut  a  dry  spray  from  a  tree,  and  flung  it  into 
the  fount.  The  spray  had  not  yet  reached  the  water  when  it 
already  turned  green,  budded,  and  put  forth  blossoms. 

"  Come  now,  that's  good  water  !  "  said  Katoma. 

The  blind  man  wetted  his  eyes  with  it,  and  saw  directly. 
He  lowered  the  cripple  into  the  water,  and  the  lame  man's 
feet  grew  again.  Then  they  both  rejoiced  greatly,  and  said  to 
one  another,  "  Now  the  time  has  come  for  us  to  get  all  right ! 
We'll  get  everything  back  again  we  used  to  have  !  Only  first 
we  must  make  an  end  of  the  Baba  Yaga.  If  we  were  to  pardon 
her  now,  we  should  always  be  unlucky;  she'd  be  scheming 
mischief  all  her  life." 

Accordingly  they  went  back  to  the  fiery  fount,  and  flung  the 
Baba  Yaga  into  it;  didn't  it  soon  make  an  end  of  her! 

*  KoUdfs,  a  word  connected  with  kolbda,  a  log,  trough,  &c. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  237 

After  this  Katoma  married  the  merchant's  daughter,  and  the 
three  companions  went  to  the  kingdom  of  Anna  the  Fair  in  order 
to  rescue  Prince  Ivan.  When  they  drew  near  to  the  capital, 
what  should  they  see  but  Prince  Ivan  driving  a  herd   of  cows  ! 

"  Stop,  herdsman  !  "  says  Katoma  ;  "  where  are  you  driving 
these  cows  ?  " 

"  I'm  driving  them  to  the  Princess's  courtyard,"  replied  the 
Prince.     "  The   Princess  always  sees  for  herself  whether  all . 
the  cows  are  there." 

"  Here,  herdsman  ;  take  my  clothes  and  put  them  on,  and  I 
will  put  on  yours  and  drive  the  cows." 

"No,  brother!  that  cannot  be  done.  If  the  Princess  found 
it  out,  I  should  suffer  harm  !  " 

"  Never  fear,  nothing  will  happen  !  Katoma  will  guarantee 
you  that." 

Prince  Ivan  sighed,  and  said — 

"  Ah,  good  man  !  If  Katoma  had  been  alive,  I  should  not 
have  been  feeding  these  cows  afield  !  " 

Then  Katoma  disclosed  to  him  who  he  was.  Prince  Ivan 
warmly  embraced  him  and  burst  into  tears. 

"  I  never  hoped  even  to  see  you  again,"  said  he. 

So  they  exchanged  clothes.  The  tutor  drove  the  cows  to 
the  Princess's  courtyard.  Anna  the  Fair  went  into  the  balcony 
looked  to  see  if  all  the  cows  were  there,  and  ordered  them  to  be 
driven  into  the  sheds.  All  the  cows  went  into  the  sheds  except 
the  last  one,  which  remained  at  the  gate.  Katoma  sprang  at  it, 
exclaiming — 

"What  are  you  waiting  for,  dog's-meat  ?  " 

Then  he  seized  it  by  the  tail,  and  pulled  it  so  hard  that  he 
pulled  fne  cow's  hide  right  off !  The  Princess  saw  this,  and 
cried  with  a  loud  voice  : 

"What  is  that  brute  of  a  cowherd  doing?  Seize  him  and 
bring  him  to  me  !  " 

Then  the  servants  seized  Katoma  and  dragged  him  to  the 
palace.     He  went  with  them,  making  no  excuses,  relying  on 

17 


258  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

himself.  They  brought  him  to  the  Princess.  She  looked  al 
him  and  asked — 

"  Who  are  you  ?     Where  do  you  come  from  ?  " 

"  I  am  he  whose  feet  you  cut  off  and  whom  you  set  on  a 
stump.     My  name  is  Katoma  dyadka,  oaken  s/mpka." 

"  Well,"  thinks  the  Princess,  "  now  that  he's  got  his  feet 
back  again,  I  must  act  straight-forwardly  with  him  for  the 
future." 

And  she  began  to  beseech  him  and  the  Prince  to  pardon 
her.  She  confessed  all  her  sins,  and  swore  an  oath  always  to 
love  Prince  Ivan,  and  to  obey  him  in  all  things.  Prince  Ivan 
forgave  her,  and  began  to  live  with  her  in  peace  and  concord. 
The  hero  who  had  been  blind  remained  with  them,  but  Katoma 
and  his  wife  went  to  the  house  of  [her  father]  the  rich  mer- 
chant, and  took  up  their  abode  under  his  roof. 

[There  is  a  story  in  the  "  Panchatantra  "  (v.  12)  which,  in  default  of  other  par- 
allels,  may  be  worth  comparing  with  that  part  of  this  Skazka  which  refers  to  the  blind 
man  and  the  cripple  in  the  forest.     Here  is  an  outline  of  it  : — 

To  a  certain  king  a  daughter  is  born  who  has  three  breasts.  Deeming  her  pres- 
ence unfortunate,  he  offers  a  hundred  thousand  purses  of  gold  to  anyone  who  will 
marry  her  and  take  her  away.  For  a  long  time  no  man  takes  advantage  of  the  offer- 
but  at  last  a  blind  man,  who  goes  about  led  by  a  hunch-back  named  Mantharaka  or 
Cripple,  marries  her,  receives  the  gold,  and  is  sent  far  away  with  his  wife  and  his 
friend.  All  three  live  together  in  the  same  house.  After  a  time  the  wife  falls  in  love 
with  the  hunchback  and  conspires  with  him  to  kill  her  husband.  For  this  purpose 
she  boils  a  snake,  intending  to  poison  her  husband  with  it.  But  he  stirs  the  snake- 
broth  as  it  is  cooking,  and  the  steam  which  rises  from  it  cures  his  blindness.  Seeing 
the  snake  in  the  pot,  he  guesses  what  has  occurred,  so  he  pretends  t:>  be  still  blind, 
and  watches  his  wife  and  his  friend.  They,  not  knowing  he  can  see,  embiace  in  his 
presence,  whereupon  he  catches  up  the  "cripple  "  by  the  legs,  and  dashes  him  against 
his  wife.  So  violent  is  the  blow  that  her  third  breast  is  driven  out  of  sight  and  the 
hunchback  is  beaten  straight.  Benfey  (whose  version  of  the  story  differs  at  the  end 
from  that  given  by  Wilson,  "  Essays,"  ii.  74)  in  his  remarks  on  this  story  (i.  p.  510- 
15),  which  he  connects  with  Buddhist  legends,  observes  that  it  occurs  also  in  the 
"Tuti-Nameh"  (Rosen,  ii.  22S),  but  there  the  hunchback  is  replaced  by  a  comely 
youth,  and  the  similarity  with  the  Russian  story  disappears.  For  a  solar  explana- 
tion of  the  Indian  story  see  A.  de  Gubematis,  "Zool.  Mythology,"  i.  85.] 

Of  this  story  there  are  many  variants.  In  one  sf  them*  а 

*  Afanasicf,  viii.  No   23  л. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  259 

king  promises  to  reward  with  vast  wealth  anyone  who  will 
find  him  "  a  bride  fairer  than  the  sun,  brighter  than  the 
moon,  and  whiter  than  snow."  A  certain  moujik,  named 
Nikita  Koltoma,  offers  to  show  him  where  a  princess  lives 
who  answers  to  this  description,  and  goes  forth  with  him 
in  search  of  her.  On  the  way,  Nikita  enters  several  forges, 
desiring  to  have  a  war  mace  cast  for  him,  and  in  one  of 
them  he  finds  fifty  smiths  tormenting  an  old  man.  Ten 
of  them  are  holding  him  by  the  beard  with  pincers,  the 
others  are  thundering  away  at  his  ribs  with  their  hammers. 
Finding  that  the  cause  of  this  punishment  is  an  unpaid 
debt  of  fifty  roubles,  Nikita  ransoms  the  greybeard,  who 
straightway  disappears.  Nikita  obtains  the  mace  he  wants, 
which  weighs  fifty  poods,  or  nearly  a  ton,  and  leaves  the 
forge.  Presently  the  old  man  whom  he  has  ransomed 
comes  running  up  to  him,  thanks  him  for  having  rescued 
him  from  a  punishment  which  had  already  lasted  thirty 
years,  and  bestows  on  him,  as  a  token  of  gratitude,  a  Cap 
of  Invisibility. 

Soon  after  this  Nikita,  attended  by  the  king  and  his 
followers,  reaches  the  palace  of  the  royal  heroine,  Helena 
the  Fair.  She  at  first  sends  her  warriors  to  capture  or 
slay  the  unwelcome  visitors,  but  Nikita  attacks  them  with 
his  mace,  and  leaves  scarce  one  alive.  Then  she  invites 
the  king  and  his  suite  to  the  palace,  having  prepared  in 
the  mean  time  a  gigantic  bow  fitted  with  a  fiery  arrow, 
wherewith  to  annihilate  her  guests.  Guessing  this,  Nikita 
puts  on  his  Cap  of  Invisibility,  bends  the  bow,  and  shoots 
the  arrow  into  the  queen's  terema  [the  women's  chambers], 
and  in  a  moment  the  whole  upper  story  is  in  a  blaze. 
After  that  the  queen  submits,  and  is  married  to  the  king. 

But  Nikita  warns  him  that  for  three  nights  runnir.g  his 


260  RCTSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

bride  will  make  trial  of  his  strength  by  laying  her  hand  on 
his  breast  and  pressing  it  hard — so  hard  that  he  will  not 
be  able  to  bear  the  pressure.  When  that  happens,  he 
must  slip  out  of  the  room,  and  let  Nikita  take  his  place. 
All  this  comes  to  pass  ;  the  bride  lays  her  hand  on  the 
bridegroom's  breast,  and  says — 

"  Is  my  hand  heavy  ?  " 

"  As  a  feather  on  water  !  "  replies  the  king,  who  can 
scarcely  draw  his  breath  beneath  the  crushing  weight  of 
the  hand  he  has  won.  Then  he  leaves  the  room,  under 
the  pretext  of  giving  an  order,  and  Nikita  takes  his  place. 
The  queen  renews  the  experiment,  presses  with  one  hand, 
presses  with  both,  and  with  all  her  might.  Nikita  catches 
her  up,  and  then  flings  her  down  on  the  floor.  The  room 
shakes  beneath  the  blow,  the  bride  "  arises,  lies  down 
quietly,  and  goes  to  sleep,"  and  Nikita  is  replaced  by  the 
king.  By  the  end  of  the  third  night  the  queen  gives  up  all 
hope  of  squeezing  her  husband  to  death,  and  makes  up 
her  mind  to  conjugal  submission.* 

But  before  long,  she,  like  Brynhild,  finds  out  that  she 
has  been  tricked,  and  resolves  on  revenge.  Throwing 
Nikita  into  a  slumber  which  lasts  for  twenty-four  hours, 
she  has  his  feet  cut  off,  and  sets  him  adrift  in  a  boat;  then 
she  degrades  her  husband,  turning  him  into  a  swineherd, 
and  she  puts  out  the  eyes  of  Nikita's  brother  Timofei.  In 
the  course  of  time  the  brothers  obtain   from  a  Baba  Yaga 

*  To  this  episode  a  striking  parallel  is  offered  by  that  of  Gunther's  wedding  night 
in  the  "  Nibelungenlied,"  in  which  Brynhild  flings  her  husband  Gunther  across  the 
room,  kneels  on  his  chest,  and  finally  binds  him  hand  and  foot,  and  suspends  him 
from  a  nail  till  daybreak.  The  next  night  Siegfried  takes  his  place,  and  wrjstke 
with  the  mighty  maiden.  After  a  long  struggle  he  flings  her  on  the  floor  and  forces 
her  to  submit.  Then  he  leaves  the  room  and  Gunther  returns.  A  summary  of  the 
story  will  be  found  in  the  "  Tales  of  the  Teutonic  Lands,"  by  G  W.  and  E.  H. 
Jones,  pp.  94-5. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  2G1 

the  healing  and  vivifying  waters,  and  so  recover  the  eyes 
and  feet  they  had  lost.  The  Witch-Queen  is  put  to  death, 
and  Nikita  lives  happily  as  the  King's  Prime  Minister. 
The  specific  actions  of  the  two  waters  are  described  with 
great  precision  in  this  story.  When  the  lame  man  sprin- 
kles his  legs  with  the  Healing  Water,  they  become  whole  at 
once  ;  "his  legs  are  quite  sound,  only  they  don't  move." 
Then  he  applies  the  Vivifying  Water,  and  the  use  of  his 
legs  returns  to  him.  Similarly  when  the  blind  man  applies 
the  Healing  Water  to  his  empty  orbits,  he  obtains  new  eyes 
— "  perfectly  faultless  eyes,  only  he  cannot  see  with  them  ; " 
he  applies  the  Vivifying  Water,  "  and  begins  to  see  even 
better  than  before." 

In  a  Ryazan  variant  of  the  story,*  Ivan  Dearly-Bought, 
after  his  legs  have  been  cut  off  at  the  knees,  and  he  has 
been  left  in  a  forest,  is  found  by  a  giant  who  has  no  arms, 
but  who  is  so  fleet  that  "  no  post  could  catch  him  up." 
The  two  maimed  heroes  form  an  alliance.  After  a  time, 
they  carry  off  a  princess  who  is  suffering  from  some  myste- 
rious disease,  and  take  her  to  their  forest  home.  She  tells 
them  that  her  illness  is  due  to  a  Snake,  which  comes  to 
her  every  night,  entering  by  the  chimney,  and  sucks  away 
her  strength.  The  heroes  seizes  the  Snake,  which  takes 
them  to  the  healing  lake,  and  they  are  cured.  Then  they 
restore  the  princess,  also  cured,  to  her  father.  Ivan  re- 
turns to  the  palace  of  the  Enchantress  Queen  who  had 
maimed  him,  and  beats  her  with  red-hot  iron  bars  until  he 
has  driven  out  of  her  all  her  magic  strength,  "  leaving  her 
only  one  woman's  strength,  and  that  a  very  poor  one." 

In  a  Tula  variantf  the  wicked  wife,  who  has  set  her 
confiding  husband  to  tend  her  pigs,  is  killed  by  the   hero. 

*  Khudyakof,  i.  No.  19.  pp.  73-7. 

T  Erlenvein,  No.  19,  pp.  95-7.  For  a  little-Russian  version  see  Kullish,  ii.  pp.  59-8». 


262  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES 

She  had  put  out  his  eyes,  and  had  cut  off  the  feet  of 
another  companion  of  her  husband  ;  in  this  variant  also 
the  Healing  Waters  are  found  by  the  aid  of  a  snake. 

The  supernatural  steed  which  Katoma  tamed  belongs 
to  an  equine  race  which  often  figures  in  the  Skazkas.  A 
good  account  of  one  of  these  horses  is  given  in  the  follow- 
ing story  of — 

Princess  Helena  the  Fair.* 

We  say  that  we  are  wise  folks,  but  our  old  people  dispute, 
tlie fact,  saying:  "  No,  no,  we  were  wiser  than  you  are."  But 
shaskas  tell  that,  before  our  grandfathers  had  learnt  anything, 
before  their  grandfathers  \  were  born — % 

There  lived  in  a  certain  land  an  old  man  of  this  kind  who  in- 
structed his  three  sons  in  reading  and  writing  §  and  all  book 
learning.     Then  said  he  to  them : 

"  Now,  my  children!  When  I  die,  mind  you  come  and  read 
prayers  over  my  grave." 

"  Very  good,  father,  very  good,"  they  replied. 

The  two  elder  brothers  were  such  fine  strapping  fellows  !  so 
tall  and  stout !  But  as  for  the  youngest  one,  Ivan,  he  was  like 
a  half-grown  lad  or  a  half-fledged  duckling,  terribly  inferior  to 
the  others.  Well,  their  old  father  died.  At  that  very  time 
there  came  tidings  from  the  King,  that  his  daughter,  the  Prin- 
cess Helena  the  Fair,  had  ordered  a  shrine  to  be  built  for  her 
with  twelve  columns,  with  twelve  rows  of  beams.  In  that  shrine 
she  was  sitting  upon  a  high  throne,  and  awaiting  her  bridegroom, 
the  bold  youth  who,  with  a  single  bound  of  his  swift  steed, 
should  reach  high  enough  to  kiss  her  on  the  lips.  A  stir  ran 
through  the  whole  youth  of  the  nation.  They  took  to  licking 
their  lips,  and  scratching  their  heads,  and  wondering  to  whose 
share  so  great  an  honor  would  fall. 

*  Afanasief,  vi.  No.  26.  From  the  Kursk  Government, 
t  Prastichurui. 

%  The  sentence  in  italics  is  a  good  specimen  of  the  priskazha,  or  preface. 
§  Graiuota  —  y раииата  whence  comes  £-ra»w/  ty,  able  to  read  and  write =ypa/i« 
иапкб-. 


MAGIC  AND    WITCHCRAFT.  2G3 

"  Brothers  !  "  said  Vanyusha,*  "  our  father  is  dead  ;  which 
of  us  is  to  read  prayers  over  his  grave  ?  " 

"  Whoever  feels  inclined,  let  him  go ! "  answered  th.2 
brothers. 

So  Vanya  went.  But  as  for  his  elder  brothers  they  did 
nothing  but  exercise  their  horses,  and  curl  their  hair,  and  dye 
their  mustaches. 

The  second  night  came. 

"  Brothers  !  "  said  Vanya,  "  I've  done  my  share  of  reading. 
It's  your  turn  now  ;  which  of  you  will  go  ?  " 

"  Whoever  likes  can  go  and  read.  We've  business  to  look 
after;  don't  you  meddle." 

And  they  cocked  their  caps,  and  shouted,  and  whooped,  and 
flew  this  way,  and  shot  that  way,  and  roved  about  the  open 
country. 

So  Vanyusha  read  prayers  this  time  also — and  on  the  third 
night,  too. 

Well,  his  brothers  got  ready  their  horses,  combed  out  their 
mustaches,  and  prepared  to  go  next  morning  to  test  their 
mettle  before  the  eyes  of  Helena  the  Fair. 

"  Shall  we  take  the  youngster  ? "  they  thought.  "  No,  no. 
What  would  be  the  good  of  him  ?  He'd  make  folks  laugh  and 
put  us  to  confusion  ;  let's  go  by  ourselves." 

So  away  they  went.  But  Vanyusha  wanted  very  much  to 
have  a  look  at  the  Princess  Helena  the  Fair.  He  cried,  cried 
bitterly;  and  went  out  to  his  father's  grave.  And  his  father 
heard  him  in  his  coffin,  and  came  out  to  him,  shook  the  damp 
earth  off  his  body,  and  said  : 

"  Don't  grieve,  Vanya.     I'll  help  you  in  your  trouble." 

And  immediately  the  old  man  drew  himself  up  and  straight- 
ened himself,  and  called  aloud  and  whistled  with  a  ringing 
voice,  with  a  shrillf  whistle. 

*  Vanya  and  Vauyusha  are  diminutives  of  Ivan  (John),  answering  to  our  Johnny  ; 
Vanka  is  another,  more  like  our  Jack. 

t  Literally  "  with  a  Solovei-like  whistle."  The  word  solovei  generally  means  a 
nightingale,  but  it  was  also  the  name  of  a  mythical  hero,  a  robber  whose  voice  or 
*histle  Iiad  the  power  of  killing  those  who  heard  it. 


264  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

From  goodness  knows  whence  appeared  a  horse,  the  earth 
quaking  beneath  it,  a  flame  rushing  from  its  ears  and  nostrils. 
To  and  fro  it  flew,  and  then  stood  still  before  the  old  man,  as  if 
rooted  in  the  ground,  and  cried, 

"  What  are  thy  commands  ?  " 

Vanya  crept  into  one  of  the  horse's  ears  and  out  of  the 
other,  and  turned  into  such  a  hero  as  no  skazka  can  tell  of,  no 
pen  describe !  He  mounted  the  horse,  set  his  arms  a-kimbo, 
and  flew,  just  like  a  falcon,  straight  to  the  home  of  the  Princess 
Helena.  With  a  wave  of  his  hand,  with  a  bound  aloft,  he  only 
failed  by  the  breadth  of  two  rows  of  beams.  Back  again  he 
turned,  galloped  up,  leapt  aloft,  and  got  within  one  beam-row's 
breadth.  Once  more  he  turned,  once  more  he  wheeled,  then 
shot  past  the  eye  like  a  streak  of  fire,  took  an  accurate  aim,  and 
kissed*  the  fair  Helena  right  on  the  lips  ! 

"  Who  is  he  ?  Who  is  he  ?  Stop  him  !  Stop  him  !  "  was 
the  cry.     Not  a  trace  of  him  was  to  be  found ! 

Away  he  galloped  to  his  father's  grave,  let  the  horse  go  free, 
prostrated  himself  on  the  earth,  and  besought  his  father's  coun- 
sel.    And  the  old  man  held  counsel  with  him. 

When  he  got  home  he  behaved  as  if  he  hadn't  been  any- 
where. His  brothers  talked  away,  describing  where  they  had 
been,  what  they  had  seen,  and  he  listened  to  them  as  of  old. 

The  next  day  there  was  a  gathering  again.  In  the  princely 
halls  there  were  more  boyars  and  nobles  than  a  single  glance 
could  take  in.  The  elder  brothers  rode  there.  Their  younger 
brother  went  there  too,  but  on  foot,  meekly  and  modestly,  just 
as  if  he  hadn't  kissed  the  Princess,  and  seated  himself  in  a 
distant  corner.  The  Princess  Helena  asked  for  her  bridegroom, 
wanted  to  show  him  to  the  world  at  large,  wanted  to  give  him 
half  her  kingdom  ;  but  the  bridegroom  did  not  put  in  an  ap- 
pearance !  Search  was  made  for  him  among  the  boyars,  among 
the  generals;  everyone  was  examined  in  his  turn — but  with  no 
result !  Meanwhile,  Vanya  looked  on,  smiling  and  chuckling, 
and  waiting  till  the  bride  should  come  to  him  herself. 

*  Ch.meknuel,  smacked. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  265 

"I  pleased  her  then,"  says  he,  "when  I  appeared  as  a  gay 
gallant ;  now  let  her  fall  in  love  with  me  in  my  plain  caftan." 

Then  up  she  rose,  looked  around  with  bright  eyes  that  shed 
a  radiance  on  all  who  stood  there,  and  saw  and  knew  her  bride- 
groom, and  made  him  take  his  seat  by  her  side,  and  speedily  was 
wedded  to  him.  And  he — good  heavens  !  how  clever  he  turned 
out,  and  how  brave,  and  what  a  handsome  fellow  !  Only  see 
him  mount  his  flying  steed,  give  his  cap  a  cock,  and  stick  his 
elbows  akimbo  !  why,  you'd  say  he  was  a  king,  a  born  king! 
you'd  never  suspect  he  once  was  only  Vanyusha. 

The  incident  of  the  midnight  watch  by  a  father's  grave, 
kept  by  a  son  to  whom  the  dead  man  appears  and  gives  a 
magic  horse,  often  occurs  in  the  Skazkas.  It  is  thoroughly 
in  accordance  with  Slavonic  ideas  about  the  residence  of 
the  dead  in  their  tombs,  and  their  ability  to  assist  their 
descendants  in  time  of  trouble.  Appeals  for  aid  to  a  dead 
parent  are  of  frequent  occurrence  in  the  songs  still  sung 
by  the  Russian  peasantry  at  funerals  or  over  graves  ;  es- 
pecially in  those  in  which  orphans  express  their  grief,  call- 
ing upon  the  grave  to  open,  and  the  dead  to  appear  and 
listen  and  help.*  So  in  the  Indian  story  of  Punchkin,  the 
seven  hungry  stepmother-persecuted  princesses  go  out 
every  day  and  sit  by  their  dead  mother's  tomb,  and  cry, 
and  say,  "  Oh,  mother,  mother,  cannot  you  see  your  poor 
children,  how  unhappy  we  are,"  etc.,  until  a  tree  grows  up 
out  of  the  grave  laden  with  fruits  for  their  relief,  f  So  in 
the  German  tale,!  Cinderella  is  aided  by  the  white  bird, 
which  dwells  in  the  hazel  tree  growing  out  of  her  mother's 
grave. 

*  See  Barsof's  rich  collection  of  North-Russian  funeral  poetry,  entitled  "  Prichi- 
Uniya  Syevernago  Kraya,"  Moscow,  187г.  Also  the  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  Peo- 
ple," pp.  334-345- 

t  Miss  Frere's  "  Old  Deccan  Days,"  pp.  j,  4. 

J  Grimm,  KM.  No.  21. 


266  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

In  one  of  the  Skazkas  *  a  stepdaughter  is  assisted  by 
her  cow.  The  girl,  following  its  instructions,  gets  in  at 
one  ear  and  out  of  the  other,  and  finds  all  her  tasks  per- 
formed, all  her  difficulties  removed.  When  it  is  killed, 
there  springs  from  its  bones  a  tree  which  befriends  the 
girl,  and  gains  her  a  lordly  husband.  In  a  Servian  variant 
of  the  story,  it  is  distinctly  stated  that  the  protecting  cow 
had  been  the  girl's  mother — manifestly  in  a  previous  state 
of  existence,  a  purely  Buddhistic  idea,  f 

In  several  of  the  Skazkas  we  find  an  account  of  a 
princess  who  is  won  in  a  similar  manner  to  that  described 
in  the  story  of  Helena  the  Fair.  In  one  case,  X  a  king 
promises  to  give  his  daughter  to  anyone  "who  can  pluck 
her  portrait  from  the  house,  from  the  other  side  of  ever 
so  many  beams."  The  youngest  brother,  Ivan  the  Sim- 
pleton, carries  away  the  portrait  and  its  cover  at  the  third 
trial.  In  another,  a  king  offers  his  daughter  and  half  his 
kingdom  to  him  "  who  can  kiss  the  princess  through  twelve 
sheets  of  glass."  §  The  usual  youngest  brother  is  carried 
towards  her  so  forcibly  by  his  magic  steed  that,  at  the  first 
trial,  he  breaks  through  six  of  the  sheets  of  glass ;  at  the 
second,  says  the  story,  "he  smashed  all  twelve  of  the 
sheets  of  glass,  and  he  kissed  the  Princess  Priceless-Beauty, 
and  she  immediately  stamped  a  mark  upon  his  forehead." 
By  this  mark,  after  he  has  disappeared  for  some  time,  he 
js  eventually  recognized,  and  the  princess  is  obliged  to 
marry  him.  ||  In  a  third  story,1F  the  conditions  of  winning 
the  princely  bride  are  easier,  for  "  he  who  takes  a  leap  on 

*  Afanasief,  vi.  No.  54. 

t  Ona  krava  shto yoy  ye  bila  mati,  Vuk  Karajich,  p.  isS.     In  the  German  tran» 
.ation  (p.  1S8)  IVie  dies  nun  die  A'u/t  s«k,  die  einst  seine  Mutter  geweseu  war. 
X  Afanasief,  ii.  p.  254. 

§  Cherez  dvyenadtsaf  stekol.     Sleklo  means  a  glass,  or  a  pine  of  glass- 
f    \fanasief,  ii.  p.  269.  4  Khudyakof,  No.  50. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  267 

horseback,  and  kisses  the  king's  daughter  on  the  balcony, 
to  him  will  they  give  her  to  wife."  In  a  fourth,  the  prin- 
cess is  to  marry  the  man  "who,  on  horseback,  bounds  up 
to  her  on  the  third  floor."  At  the  first  trial,  the  Durak, 
or  Fool,  reaches  the  first  floor,  at  the  next,  the  second  ; 
and  the  third  time,  "  he  bounds  right  up  to  the  princess, 
and  carries  off  from  her  a  ring."  * 

In  the  Norse  story  of  "  Dapplegrim,"  f  a  younger  brother 
saves  a  princess  who  had  been  stolen  by  a  Troll,  and  hidden 
in  a  cave  above  a  steep  wall  of  rock  as  smooth  as  glass. 
Twice  his  magic  horse  tries  in  vain  to  surmount  it,  but  the 
third  time  it  succeeds,  and  the  youth  carries  off  the  princess, 
who  ultimately  becomes  his  wife.  Another  Norse  story 
still  more  closely  resembles  the  Russian  tales.  In  "  The 
Princess  on  the  Glass  Hill "  %  the  hero  gains  a  Princess  as 
his  wife  by  riding  up  a  hill  of  glass,  on  the  top  of  which 
she  sits,  with  three  golden  apples  in  her  lap,  and  by  carry- 
ing off  these  precious  fruits.  He  is  enabled  to  perform 
this  feat  by  a  magic  horse,  which  he  obtains  by  watching 
his  father's  crops  on  three  successive  St.  John's  Nights. 

In  a  Celtic  story,§  a  king  promises  his  daughter,  and 
two-thirds  of  his  kingdom,  to  anyone  who  can  get  her  out 
of  a  turret  which  "  was  aloft,  on  the  top  of  four  carraghan 
towers."  The  hero  Conall  kicks  "  one  of  the  posts  that 
was  keeping  the  turret  aloft,"  the  post  breaks,  and  the 
turret  falls,  but  Conall  catches  it  in  his  hands  before  it 
reaches  the  ground,  a  door  opens,    and  out  comes   the 


*  Afanasief.  iii.  p-  25. 

t  Dasent's  "  Norse  Tales,"  No.  40.  Asbjornsen  and  Мое,  No-  37.  "  Giima* 
borken." 

X  Dasent,  No.  13.  Asbjornsen  and  Мое,  No.  51.  "  Jomlruen  ua.i  Glasber 
get." 

§  Campbell's  "  West-Highland  Taies,"  iii.  pp.  265,  206. 


2G8  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Trincess  Sunbeam,  and  throws  her  arms  about  Conall's 
neck. 

In  most  of  these  stories  the  wife-gaining  leap  is  so 
vaguely  described  that  it  is  allowable  to  suppose  that  the 
original  idea  has  been  greatly  obscured  in  the  course  of 
travel.  In  some  Eastern  stories  it  is  set  in  a  much  plainer 
light ;  in  one  modern  collection  for  instance,  *  it  occurs 
four  times.  A  princess  is  so  fond  of  her  marble  ba'.h, 
which  is  "  like  a  little  sea,"  with  high  spiked  walls  all 
around  it,  that  she  vows  she  will  marry  no  one  who  cannot 
jump  across  it  on  horseback.  Another  princess  determines 
to  marry  him  only  who  can  leap  into  the  glass  palace  in 
which  she  dwells,  surrounded  by  a  wide  river  ;  and  many 
kings  and  princes  perish  miserably  in  attempting  to  per- 
form the  feat.  A  third  king's  daughter  lives  in  a  garden 
"  hedged  round  with  seven  hedges  made  of  bayonets,"  by 
which  her  suitors  are  generally  transfixed.  A  fourth  "  has 
vowed  to  marry  no  man  who  cannot  jump  on  foot  over 
the  seven  hedges  made  of  spears,  and  across  the  seven 
great  ditches  that  surround  her  house  ;  "  and  "  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  Rajahs  have  tried  to  do  it,  and  died  in  the 
attempt." 

The  secluded  princess  of  these  stories  may  have  been 
primarily  akin  to  the  heroine  of  the  "  Sleeping  Beauty " 
tales,  but  no  special  significance  appears  now  to  be  at- 
tributable to  her  isolation.  The  original  idea  seems  to 
have  been  best  preserved  in  the  two  legends  of  the  wooing 
of  Brynhild  by  Sigurd,  in  the  first  of  which  he  awakens 
her  from  her  magic  sleep,  while  in  the  second  he  ga'  is  her 
hand  (for  Gunnar)  by  a  daring  and  difficult  ride — fo.  "him 
only  would  she  have  who  should  ride  through  the  flaming 

*  Miss  Frere's  "  Old  Deccan  Days,"  pp.  31.  73,  9S1  4i 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  2fid 

fire  lhat  was  drawn  about  her  hall."  Gunnar  fails  to  do 
so,  but  Sigurd  succeeds  ;  his  horse  leaps  into  the  fire,  "  and 
a  mighty  roar  arose  as  the  fire  burned  ever  madder,  and 
the  earth  trembled,  and  'he  flames  went  up  even  unto  the 
heavens,  nor  had  any  darnel  to  ride  as  he  rode,  even  as  it 
were  through  the  deep  mvk."  * 

We  will  take  next  a  .s^ory  which  is  a  great  favorite  in 
Russia,  and  which  will  serve  as  another  illustration  of  the 
use  made  of  magical  "  properties  "  in  the  Skazkas. 

Emilian  the  FooL.f 
There  were  once  three  brothers,  of  whom  two  were  sharp- 
witted,  but  the  third  was  a  fool.     The  elder  brothers  set  off  to 
sell  their  goods   in  the  towns  down  the  river,:}:  and  said  to  the 
fool : 

"  Now  mind,  fool  !  obey  our  wives,  and  pay  them  respect  as 
if  they  were  your  о-лг.  mothers.  We'll  buy  you  red  boots,  and 
a  red  caftan,  and  ?.  red  shirt." 

The  fool  said  ro  them  : 

"  Very  good  ;  I  will  pay  them  respect." 

They  gave  the  fool  their  orders  and  went  away  to  the  down- 
stream towns  ;  but  the  fool  stretched  himself  on  top  of  the  stove 
and  remained  lying  there.     His  brothers'  wives  say  to  him — 

"  What  arc  you  about,  fool !  your  brothers  ordered  you  to 
pay  ч?  respect,  and  in  return  for  that  each  of  them  was  going  to 
brmg  ycu  a  present,  but  there  you  lie  on  the  stove  and  don't  do 
я  bit  of  work.     Go  and  fetch  some  water,  at  all  events." 

The  fool  took  a  couple  o*.  pails  and  went  to  fetch  the  water. 
As  he  scooped  it  up,  a  pike  happened  to  get  into  his  pail.  Says 
the  fool : 


*  "  Vblsurijra  Saga,"  trr-clrtrd  by  E.  Magnusson  and  W.  Morris,  pp.  95-6. 

t  Afan&sief,  vi.  No.  12.  From  the  Novgorod  Government.  A  "chap-book" 
version  of  this  s'o'y  wA\  he  iour.d  in  Dietrich's  collection  (pp.  152-68  of  the  English 
translation)  ;  ?.lso  Ь  Ke'ghtt  .-y's  "Tales  and  Popular  Fictions." 

t  Nijnir,  Jjver.  Thus  Nijny  Novgorod  is  the  lower  (down  the  Volgal  Nov- 
gorod.    {Dp.a\  ) 


270  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  Glory  to  God !  now  I  will  cook  this  pike,  and  will  eat  it  all 
myself ;  I  won't  give  a  bit  of  it  to  my  sisters-in-law.  I'm  savage 
With  them  !  " 

The  pike  says  to  him  with  a  human  voice  : 

"  Don't  eat  me,  fool !  if  you'll  put  me  back  again  into  the 
water  you  shall  have  good  luck  !  " 

Says  the  fool,  "  What  sort  of  good  luck  shall  I  get  from 
you  ? " 

"  Why,  this  sort  of  good  luck  :  whatever  you  say,  that  shall 
be  done.  Say,  for  instance,  '  By  the  Pike's  command,  at  my 
request,  go  home,  ye  pails,  and  be  set  in  your  places.' " 

As  soon  as  the  fool  had  said  this,  the  pails  immediately 
went  home  of  their  own  accord  and  became  set  in  their  places. 
The  sisters-in-law  looked  and  wondered. 

"  What  sort  of  a  fool  is  this  ! "  they  say.  "  Why,  he's  so 
knowing,  you  see,  that  his  pails  have  come  home  and  gone  to 
their  places  of  their  own  accord  !  " 

The  fool  came  back  and  lay  down  on  the  stove.  Again  did 
his  brothers'  wives  begin  saying  to  him — 

"What  are  you  lying  on  the  stove  for,  fool  ?  there's  no  wood 
for  the  fire  ;  go  and  fetch  some." 

The  fool  took  two  axes  and  got  into  a  sledge,  but  without 
harnessing  a  horse  to  it. 

"By  the  Pike's  command,"  he  says,  "at  my  request,  drive, 
into  the  forest,  О  sledge  !  " 

Away  went  the  sledge  at  a  rattling  pace,  as  if  urged  on  by 
some  one.  The  fool  had  to  pass  by  a  town,  and  the  people  he 
met  were  jammed  into  corners  by  his  horseless  sledge  in  a  way 
that  was  perfectly  awful.     They  all  began  crying  out : 

"Stop  him!     Catch  him  !  " 

But  they  couldn't  lay  hands  on  him.  The  fool  drove  into 
the  forest,  got  out  of  the  sledge,  sat  down  on  a  log,  and  said — 

"  One  of  you  axes  fell  the  trees,  while  the  other  cuts  them 
up  into  billets   " 

Well,  the  fiiewood  was  cut  up  and  piled  on  the  sledge.  TheD 
says  the  fool : 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  271 

"  Now  then,  one  of  you  axes  !  go  and  cut  me  a  cudgel,*  as 
heavy  a  one  as  I  can  lift." 

The  axe  went  and  cut  him  a  cudgel,  and  the  cudgel  came 
and  lay  on  top  of  the  load. 

The  fool  tool:  his  seat  and  drove  off.     He  drove  l  у  the 
"  town,  but  the  townspeople  had  met  together  and  had  been  look- 
ing out  for  him  for  ever  so  long.     So  they  stopped  the  fooi,  laid 
hands  upon  him,  and  began  pulling  him  about.     Says  the  fool — 

"By  the  Pike's  command,  at  my  request,  go,  О  cudgel,  and 
bestir  thyself." 

Out  jumped  the  cudgel,  and  took  to  thumping  and  smashing, 
and  knocked  over  ever  such  a  lot  of  people.  There  they  lay  on 
the  ground,  strewed  about  like  so  many  sheaves  of  corn.  The 
fcol  got  clear  of  them  and  drove  home,  heaped  up  the  wood, 
and  then  lay  down  on  the  stove. 

Meanwhile,  the  townspeople  got  up  a  petition  against  him, 
and  denounced  him  to  the  King,  saying: 

"  Folks  say  there's  no  getting  hold  of  him  the  way  we  tried  ;  t 
we  must  entice  him  by  cunning,  and  the  best  way  of  all  will  be 
to  promise  him  a  red  shirt,  and  a  red  caftan,  and  red  boots." 

So  the  King's  runners  came  for  the  fool. 

"Go  to  the  King,"  they  say,  "he  will  give  you  red  boots,  a 
red  caftan,  and  a  red  shirt." 

Well,  the  fool  said  : 

"  By  the  Pike's  command,  at  my  request,  do  thou,  О  stove, 
go  to  the  King  !  " 

"He  was  seated  on  the  stove  at  the  time.  The  stove  went; 
the  fool  arrived  at  the  King's. 

The  King  was  going  to  put  him  to  death,  but  he  had  a 
daughter,  and  she  took  a  tremendous  liking  to  the  fool.  So 
she  began  begging  her  father  to  give  her  in  marriage  to  the  fool. 
Her  father  flew  into  a  passion.  He  had  them  married,  and 
then  ordered  them  both  to  be  placed  in  a  tub,  and  the  tub  to  be 
tarred  over  and  thrown  into  the  water;  all  which  was  done. 

*  Kukova,  a  stick  or  cudgel,  one  end  of  which  is  bent  an  1  rounded  like  a  bail, 
t  Так  de  ego  ne  vzaC . 


272  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Long  did  the  tub  float  about  on  the  sea.  His  wife  began  to 
beseech  the  fool : 

"  Do  something  to  get  us  cast  on  shore  !  " 

"  By  the  Pike's  command,  at  my  request,"  said  the  fool, 
"cast  this  tub  ashore  and  tear  it  open !  " 

He  and  his  wife  stepped  out  of  the  tub.  Then  she  again 
began  imploring  him  to  build  some  sort  of  a  house.  The  fool 
said  : 

"  By  the  Pike's  command,  at  my  request,  let  a  marble  palace 
be  built,  and  let  it  stand  immediately  opposite  the  King's 
palace  !  " 

This  was  all  done  in  an  instant.  In  the  morning  the  King 
saw  the  new  palace,  and  sent  to  enquire  who  it  was  that  lived 
in  it.  As  soon  as  he  learnt  that  his  daughter  lived  there,  that 
very  minute  he  summoned  her  and  her  husband.  They  came. 
The  King  pardoned  them,  and  they  all  began  living  together 
and  flourishing.* 

"  The  Pike,"  observes  Afanasief,  "  is  a  fish  of  great 
repute  in  northern  mythology.  One  of  the  old  Russian 
songs  still  sung  at  Christmas,  tells  how  a  Pike  comes  from 
Novgorod,  its  scales  of  silver  and  gold,  its  back  woven 
with  pearls,  a  costly  diamond  gleaming  in  its  head  instead 
of  eyes.     And  this  song  is  one  which  promises  wealth,  a 

*  There  are  numerous  variants  of  this  story  among  the  Skazkas.  In  one  of  these 
(Afanasief,  vii.  No.  31)  the  man  on  whom  the  pike  has  bestowed  supernatural  power 
uses  it  to  turn  a  Maiden  princess  into  a  mother.  This  renders  the  story  wholly  in 
accordance  with  (1)  the  Modern  Greek  tale  of  "  The  Half  Man,"  (Hahn,  No.  8)  in 
which  the  magic  formula  runs,  "  according  to  the  first  word  of  God  and  the  second  of 
the  fish  shall  such  and  such  a  thing  be  done  !  "  (2)  The  Neapolitan  story  of  "  Per- 
vonto  "  (Basile's  "  Pentamerone,"  No.  3)  who  obtains  his  magic  power  from  three 
youths  whom  he  screens  from  the  sun  as  they  lie  asleep  one  hot  day,  and  who  turn  out 
to  be  sons  of  a  fairy.  Afanasief  compares  the  story  also  with  the  German  tale  of  "The 
Little  Grey  Mannikin,"  in  the  "  Zeitschrift  fur  Deutsche  Mythologie,"  &c,  i.  pp.  38- 
40.  The  incident  of  wishes  being  fulfilled  by  a  fish  occurs  in  many  stories,  as  in  that 
of  "  The  Fisherman,"  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  "  The  Fisherman  and  his  Wife,"  in 
Grimm  {KM.,  No.  19).  A  number  of  stories  about  the  Pike  are  referred  to  by  A.  de 
Gubernatis  ("  Zoolog.  Mythology,"  ii.  337-9). 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAl-T.  273 

fact  conneuing  the  Russian  f.sh  with  that  Scandinavian 
pike  which  was  a  shape  assumed  by  Andvari — the  dwarf- 
guardian  of  the  famous  treasure,  from  which  sprang  the 
woes  recounted  in  the  Volsunga  Saga  and  the  Nibelungcn- 
lied.  According  to  a  Lithuanian  tradition,*  there  is  a 
certain  lake  which  is  ruled  by  the  monstrous  pike  Strukis. 
It  sleeps  only  once  a  year,  and  then  only  for  a  single  hour. 
It  used  always  to  sleep  on  St.  John's  Night,  but  a  fisher- 
man once  took  advantage  of  its  slumber  to  catch  a  quanti- 
ty of  its  scaly  subjects.  Strukis  awoke  in  time  to  upset  the 
fisherman's  boat ;  but  fearing  a  repetition  of  the  attempt, 
it  now  changes  each  year  the  hour  of  its  annual  sleep.  A 
gigantic  pike  figures  also  in  the  Kalevala. 

It  would  be  easy  to  fill  with  similar  stories,  not  only  a 
section  of  a  chapter,  but  a  whole  volume  ;  but  instead  of 
quoting  any  more  of  them,  I  will  take  a  few  specimens 
from  a  different,  though  a  somewhat  kindred  group  of 
tales — those  which  relate  to  the  magic  powers  supposed 
to  be  wielded  in  modern  times  by  dealers  in  the  Black  Art. 
Such  narratives  as  these  are  to  be  found  in  every  land, 
but  Russia  is  specially  rich  in  them,  the  faith  of  the 
peasantry  in  the  existence  of  Witches  and  Wizards,  Turn- 
skins andVampires,  not  having  been  as  yet  seriously  shaken. 
Some  of  the  stories  relating  to  the  supernatural  Witch,  who 
evidently  belongs  to  the  demon  world,  have  already  been 
given.  In  those  which  I  am  about  to  quote,  the  wizard  or 
witch  who  is  mentioned  is  a  human  being,  but  one  who  has 
made  a  compact  with  evil  spirits,  and  has  thereby  become 
endowed  with  strange  powers.  Such  monsters  as  these 
are,  throughout  their  lives,  a  terror  to  the  district  they 
inhabit ;  nor  does  their  evil   influence   die  with   them,  for 

•  Quoted  by  Afanasicf  from  Siemienski's  ,;  Podania"  Posen,  1845,  p.  41. 

iS 


271  RUSSIAN  FOLK-  TALES. 

after  they  have  been  laid  in  the  earth,  they  assume  their 
direst  °spect,  and  as  Van  pi  res  bent  on  blood,  night  after 
\  night,  they  go  forth  from  their  graves  to  destroy.  As 
I  have  elsewhere  given  some  account  of  Slavonic  beliefs 
in  witchcraft,*  I  will  do  little  more  at  present  than 
allow  the  stories  to  speak  for  themselves.  They  will  be 
recognized  as  being  akin  to  the  tales  about  sorcery  current 
farther  west,  but  they  are  of  a  more  savage  nature.  The 
rustic  warlocks  and  witches  of  whom  we  are  accustomed  to 
hear  have  little,  if  any,  of  that  thirst  for  blood  which  so  un- 
favorably characterizes  their  Slavonic  counterparts.  Here 
is  a  story,  by  way  of  example,  of  a  most  gloomy  nature. 

The  Witch  GiRL.f 

Late  one  evening,  a  Cossack  rode  into  a  village,  pulled  up  at 
its  last  cottage,  and  cried — 

"  Heigh,  master !  will  you  let  me  spend  the  night  here  ?  " 

"  Come  in,  if  you  don't  fear  death  !  " 

"  What  sort  of  a  reply  is  that  ? "  thought  the  Cossack,  as  he 
put  his  horse  up  in  the  stable.  After  he  had  given  it  its  food 
he  went  into  the  cottage.  There  he  saw  its  inmates,  men  and 
women  and  little  children,  all  sobbing  and  crying  and  praying  to 
God  ;  and  when  they  had  done  praying,  they  began  putting  on 
clean  shirts. 

"  What  are  you  crying  about  ?  "  asked  the  Cossack. 

"  Why  you  see,"  replied  the  master  of  the  house,  "  in  our 
village  Death  goes  about  at  night.  Into  whatsoever  cottage  she 
looks,  there,  next  morning,  one  has  to  put  all  the  people  who 
lived  in  it  into  coffins,  and  carry  them  off  to  the  graveyard.  To- 
night it's  our  turn." 

"  Never  fear,  master  !  '  Without  God's  will,  no  pig  gets  its 
fill  !  '  " 

*  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  pp.  3S7-427. 

t  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  36  a.    This  story  has  no  special  title  in  the  original. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  275 

The  people  of  the  house  lay  down  to  sleep ;  but  the  Cossack 
was  on  the  look-out  and  never  closed  an  eye.  Exactly  at  mid- 
night the  window  opened.  At  the  window  appeared  a  witch  al. 
in  white.  She  took  a  sprinkler,  passed  her  arm  into  the  cot- 
tage, and  was  just  on  the  point  of  sprinkling — when  the  Cossack 
suddenly  gave  his  sabre  a  sweep,  and  cut  her  arm  off  close  to 
the  shoulder.  The  witch  howled,  squealed,  yelped  like  a  dog, 
and  fled  away.  But  the  Cossack  picked  up  the  severed  arm, 
hid  it  under  his  cloak,  washed  away  the  stains  of  blood,  and  lay 
down  to  sleep. 

Next  morning  the  master  and  mistress  awoke,  and  saw  that 
everyone,  without  a  single  exception,  was  alive  and  well,  and 
they  were  delighted  beyond  expression. 

"If  you  like,"  says  the  Cossack,  "  I'll  show  you  Death! 
Call  together  all  the  Sotniks  and  Desyatniks  *  as  quickly  as 
possible,  and  let's  go  through  the  village  and  look  for  her." 

Straightway  all  the  Sotniks  and  Desyatniks  came  together, 
and  went  from  house  to  house.  In  this  one  there's  nothing,  in 
that  one  there's  nothing,  until  at  last  they  come  to  the  Pono- 
mar's  f  cottage. 

"  Is  all  your  family  present  ? "  asks  the  Cossack. 

"  No,  my  own  !  one  of  my  daughters  is  ill.  She's  lying  on 
the  stove  there." 

The  Cossack  looked  towards  the  stove — one  of  the  girl's  arms 
had  evidently  been  cut  off.  Thereupon  he  told  the  whole  story 
of  what  had  taken  place,  and  he  brought  out  and  showed  the 
arm  which  had  been  cut  off.  The  commune  rewarded  the 
Cossack  with  a  sum  of  money,  and  ordered  that  witch  to  be 
drowned. 

Stories  of  this  kind  are  common  in  all  lands,  but  the 
witches  about  whom  they  are  told  generally  assume  the  forms 
of  beasts  of  prey,  especially  of  wolves,  or  of  cats.     A  long 

*  The  rural  police.    Sotnick  =  centurion,  from  sto  =  100.    Desyainik  is  a  word 
of  the  same  kind  from  desyat  =  io, 
t  A  Ponomar  is  a  kind  of  sacristan. 


276  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

string  of  similar  tales  will  be  found  in  Dr.  Wilhelm  Hertz's 
excellent  and  exhaustive  monograph  on  werwolves.*  Very 
important  also  is  the  Polish  story  told  by  Wojcicki  f  of  the 
village  which  is  attacked  by  the  Plague,  embodied  in  the 
form  of  a  woman,  who  roams  from  house  to  house  in  search 
of  victims.  One  night,  as  she  goes  her  rounds,  all  doors  and 
windows  have  been  barred  against  her  except  one  casement. 
1  his  has  been  left  open  by  a  nobleman  who  is  ready  to  sac- 
rifice himself  for  the  sake  of  others.  The  Pest  Maiden  ar- 
rives, and  thrusts  her  arm  in  at  his  window.  The  nobleman 
cuts  it  off,  and  so  rids  the  village  of  its  fatal  visitor.  In  an 
Indian  story,  t  a  hero  undertakes  to  watch  beside  the  couch 
of  a  haunted  princess.  When  all  is  still  a  Rakshasa  ap- 
pears on  the  threshold,  opens  the  door,  and  thrusts  into 
the  room  an  arm — which  the  hero  cuts  off.  the  fiend  dis- 
appears howling,  and  leaves  his  arm  behind. 

The  horror  of  the  next  story  is  somewhat  mitigated  by 
a  slight  infusion  of  the  grotesque — but  this  may  arise  from 
a  mere  accident,  and  be  due  to  the  exceptional  cheerful- 
ness of  some  link  in  the  chain  of  its  narrators. 

The  Headless  Princess.  § 

In  a  certain  country  there  lived  a  King  ;  and  this  King  had  a 
daughter  who  was  an  enchantress.  Near  the  royal  palace  there 
dwelt  a  priest,  and  the  priest  had  a  boy  of  ten  years  old,  who 
went  every  day  to  an  old  woman  to  learn  reading  and  writing. 
Now  it  happened  one  day  that  he  came  away  from  his  lessons 
late  in  the  evening,  and  as  he  passed  by  the  palace  he  looked 

*  "  Der  Werwolf,  Beitrag   zur  Sagengeschichte,"    Stuttgart,  1862.     For   Russian 
ideas  on  the  subject  see  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  people,"  pp.  403-9. 
t  "  Polnische  Volkssagen  "  (translated  by  Lewestam),  p.  61. 
t  Rrockhaus's  "  Marchensammlung  des  Somadeva  Bhatta,"  ii.  p.  24. 
§  Atajiasief,  vii.  No.  36  b.    This  story,  also,  is  without  special  title. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  277 

in  it  one  of  the  windows.  At  that  window  the  Princess  hap- 
pened to  be  sitting  and  dressing  herself.  She  took  off  her  head, 
lathered  it  with  soap,  washed  it  with  clean  water,  combed  its 
hair,  plaited  its  long  back  braid,  and  then  put  it  back  again  in 
its  proper  place.     The  boy  was  lost  in  wonder. 

"  What  a  clever  creature  !  "  thinks  he.  "  A  downright 
witch !  " 

And  when  he  got  home  he  began  telling  every  one  how  he 
had  seen  the  Princess  without  her  head. 

All  of  a  sudden  the  King's  daughter  fell  grievously  ill,  and 
she  sent  for  her  father,  and  strictly  enjoined  him,  saying — 

"  If  I  die,  make  the  priest's  son  read  the  psalter  over  me 
three  night's  running." 

The  Princess  died  ;  they  placed  her  in  a  coffin,  and  carried 
it  to  church.     Then  the  king  summoned  the  priest,  and  said — 

"  Have  you  got  a  son  ?  " 

"  I  have,  your  majesty." 

"  Well  then,"  said  the  King,  "  let  him  read  the  psalter  over 
my  daughter  three  nights  running." 

The  priest  returned  home,  and  told  his  son  to  get  ready.  In 
the  morning  the  priest's  son  went  to  his  lessons,  and  sat  over 
his  book  looking  ever  so  gloomy. 

"  What  are  you  unhappy  about  ?  "  asked  the  old  woman. 

"  How  can  I  help  being  unhappy,  when  I'm  utterly  done 
for?" 

"Why  what's  the  matter?  Speak  out  plainly." 

"  Well  then,  granny,  I've  got  to  read  psalms  over  the  princess, 
and,  do  you  know,  she's  a  witch  !  "* 

"  I  knew  that  before  you  did !  But  don't  be  frightened, 
there's  a  knife  for  you.  When  you  go  into  the  church,  trace  a 
circle  round  you  ;  then  read  away  from  your  psalter  and  dont 
look  behind  you.  Whatever  happens  there,  whatever  horrors 
may  appear,  mind  your  own  business  and  go  on  reading,  reading; 
But  if  you  look  behind  you,  it  will  be  all  over  with  you  !  " 

In  the  evening  the  boy  went  to  the  church,  traced  a  circle 
round  him   with  the  knife,  and  betook  himself  to  the  Dsalter. 


278  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Twelve  o'clock  struck.  The  lid  of  the  coffin  flew  up  ;  the  Prin- 
cess arose,  leapt  out,  and  cried — 

"  Now  I'll  teach  you  to  go  peeping  through  my  windows,  and 
telling  people  what  you  saw  !  " 

She  began  rushing  at  the  priest's  son,  but  she  couldn't  any- 
how break  into  the  circle.  Then  she  began  to  conjure  up  all 
sorts  of  horrors.  But  in  spite  of  all  that  she  did,  he  went  on 
reading  and  reading,  and  never  gave  a  look  round.  And  at  day- 
break the  Princess  rushed  at  her  coffin,  and  tumbled  into  it  at 
full  length,  all  of  a  heap. 

The  next  night  everything  went  on  just  the  same.  The 
priest's  son  wasn't  a  bit  afraid,  went  on  reading  without  a  stop 
right  up  to  daybreak,  and  in  the  morning  went  to  the  old  woman. 
She  asked  him— 

"  Well !  have  you  seen  horrors  ?  " 

"  Yes,  granny  !  " 

"  It  will  be  still  more  horrible  this  time.  Here's  a  hammer 
for  you  and  four  nails.  Knock  them  into  the  four  corners  of  the 
coffin,  and  when  you  begin  reading  the  psalter,  stick  up  the 
hammer  in  front  of  you." 

In  the  evening  the  priest's  son  went  to  the  church,  and  did 
everything  just  as  the  old  woman  had  told  him.  Twelve  o'clock 
struck,  the  coffin  lid  fell  to  the  ground,  the  Princess  jumped  up 
and  began  tearing  from  side  to  side,  and  threatening  the  youth. 
Then  she  conjured  up  horrors,  this  time  worse  than  before.  It 
seemed  to  him  as  if  a  fire  had  broken  out  in  the  church ;  all 
the  walls  were  wrapped  in  flames !  But  he  held  his  ground 
and  went  on  reading,  never  once  looking  behind  him.  Just  be- 
fore daybreak  the  Princess  rushed  to  her  coffin — then  the  fire 
seemed  to  go  out  immediately,  and  all  the  deviltry  vanished ! 

In  the  morning  the  King  came  to  the  church,  and  saw  that 
the  coffin  was  open,  and  in  the  coffin  lay  the  princess,  face  down- 
wards. 

"  What's  the  meaning  of  all  this  ?  "  says  he. 

The  lad  told  him  everything  that  had  taken  place.  Then  the 
king  gave  orders  that  an  aspen  stake  should  be  driven  into  his 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  279 

daughter's  breast,  and  that  her  body  should  be  thrust  into  a  hole 
in  the  ground.  But  he  rewarded  the  priest's  son  with  a  heap  of 
money  and  various  lands. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  among  the  stories  of  this 
class  is  the  following,  which  comes  from  Little  Russia. 
Those  readers  who  are  acquainted  with  the  works  of  Gogol, 
the  great  Russian  novelist,  who  was  a  native  of  that  part  of 
the  country,  will  observe  how  closely  he  has  kept  to  popular 
traditions  in  his  thrilling  story  of  the  Vy,  which  has  been 
translated  into  English,  from  the  French,  under  the  title  of 
"  The  King  of  the  Gnomes."  * 

The  Soldier's  Midnight  Watch. f 
Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  Soldier  who  served  God  and  the 
great  Gosudar  for  fifteen  years,  without  ever  setting  eyes  on  his 
parents.  At  the  end  of  that  time  there  came  an  order  from  the 
Tsar  to  grant  leave  to  the  soldiers — to  twenty-five  of  each  com- 
pany at  a  time — to  go  and  see  their  families.  Together  with 
the  rest  our  Soldier,  too,  got  leave  to  go,  and  set  off  to  pay  a 
visit  to  his  home  in  the  government  of  Kief.  After  a  time  he 
reached  Kief,  visited  the  Lavra,  prayed  to  God,  bowed  down 
before  the  holy  relics,  and  then  started  again  for  his  birthplace, 
a  provincial  town  not  far  off.  Well,  he  walked  and  walked. 
Suddenly  there  happens  to  meet  him  a  fair  maiden  who  was  the 
daughter  of  a  merchant  in  that  same  town  ;  a  most  remarkable 
beauty.  Now  everyone  knows  that  if  a  soldier  catches  sight  of 
a  pretty  girl,  nothing  will  make  him  pass  her  by  quietly,  but  he 
hooks  on  to  her  somehow  or  other.  And  so  this  Soldier  gets 
alongside  of  the  merchant's  daughter,  and  says  to  her  jokingly — 
"  How  now,  fair  damsel !  not  broken  in  to  harness  yet  ? " 
"  God  knows,  soldier,  who  breaks  in  whom,"  replies  the  girl. 
ы  I  may  do  it  to  you,  or  you  to  me." 

So  saying  she  laughed  and  went  her  way.  Well,  the  Soldier 

*  In  Mi.  Hain  Friswell's  collection  of  "  Ghost  Stories,"  1S58. 
t  Afanasief,  vii.  No-  j6  с     Also  without  special  title. 


280  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

arrived  at  home,  greeted  his  family,  and  rejoiced  greatly  at  find- 
ing they  were  all  in  good  health. 

Now  he  had  an  old  grandfather,  as  white  as  a  tun,  who  hud 
lived  a  hundred  years  and  a  bit.  The  Soldier  was  gossiping 
with  him,  and  said  : 

"  As  I  was  coming  home,  grandfather,  I  happened  to  meet 
an  uncommonly  fine  girl,  and,  sinner  that  I  am,  I  chaffed  her, 
and  she  said  to  me  : 

"  '  God  knows,  soldier,  whether  you'll  break  me  in  to  harness, 
or  I'll  break  you.'  " 

"  Eh,  sirs !  whatever  have  you  done  ?  Why  that's  the 
daughter  of  our  merchant  here,  an  awful  witch !  She's  sent 
more  than  one  fine  young  fellow  out  of  the  white  world." 

"Well,  well!  I'm  not  one  of  the  timid  ones,  either!  You 
won't  frighten  me  in  a  hurry.  We'll  wait  and  see  what  God  will 
send." 

"  No,  no,  grandson  !  "  says  the  grandfather.  "  If  you  don't 
listen  to  me,  you  won't  be  alive  to-morrow !  " 

"Here's  a  nice  fix!"  says  the  Soldier. 

"  Yes,  such  a  fix  that  you've  never  known  anything  half  so 
awful,  even  when  soldiering." 

"  What  must  I  do  then,  grandfather  ?  " 

"  Why  this.  Provide  yourself  with  a  bridle,  and  take  a  thick 
aspen  cudgel,  and  sit  quietly  in  the  izba — don't  stir  a  step  any- 
where. During  the  night  she  will  come  running  in,  and  if  she 
manages  to  say  before  you  can  •  Stand  still,  my  steed  !  '  you 
will  straightway  turn  into  a  horse.  Then  she  will  jump  upon 
your  back,  and  will  make  you  gallop  about  until  she  has  ridden 
you  to  death.  But  if  you  manage  to  say  before  she  speaks, 
"Tprru!  stand  still,  jade  !  "  she  will  be  turned  into  a  mare. 
Then  you  must  bridle  her  and  jump  on  her  back.  She  will  run 
away  with  you  over  hill  and  dale,  but  do  you  hold  your  own ;  hit 
her  over  the  head  with  the  aspen  cudgel,  and  go  on  hitting  her 
until  you  beat  her  to  death." 

The  Soldier  hadn't  expected  such  a  job  as  this,  but  there 
was  no  help  for  it.     So  he  followed  his  grandfather's  advice, 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  281 

provided  himself  with  a  bridle  and  an  aspen  cudgel,  took  his 
seat  in  a  corner,  and  waited  to  see  what  would  happen.  At  the 
midnight  hour  the  passage  door  creaked  and  the  sound  of  steps 
was  heard  ;  the  witch  was  coming !  The  moment  the  door  of 
the  room  opened,  the  Soldier  immediately  ciied  out — 

"  Tprru  !  stand  still,  jade  !  " 

The  witch  turned  into  a  mare,  and  he  bridled  her,  led  her 
into  the  yard,  and  jumped  on  her  back.  The  mare  carried  him 
off  over  hills  and  dales  and  ravines,  and  did  all  she  could  to  try 
and  throw  her  rider.  But  no  !  the  Soldier  stuck  on  tight,  and 
thumped  her  over  the  head  like  anything  with  the  aspen  cudgel, 
and  went  on  treating  her  with  a  taste  of  the  cudgel  until  he 
knocked  her  off  her  feet,  and  then  pitched  into  her  as  she  lay  on 
the  ground,  gave  her  another  half-dozen  blows  or  so,  and  at  last 
beat  her  to  death. 

By  daybreak  he  got  home. 

"  Well,  my  friend  !  how  have  you  got  on  ?  "  asks  his  grand* 
father. 

"Glory  be  to  God,  grandfather!  I've  beaten  her  to  death." 

"  All  right !  now  lie  down  and  go  to  sleep." 

The  Soldier  lay  down  and  fell  into  a  deep  slumber.  Towards 
evening  the  old  man  awoke  him — 

"  Get  up,  grandson." 

He  got  up. 

"  What's  to  be  done  now  ?  As  the  merchant's  daughter  is 
dead,  you  see,  her  father  will  come  ifter  you,  and  will  bid  you 
to  his  house  to  read  psalms  over  the  dead  body." 

"Well,  grandfather,  am  I  to  go,  or  not  ?  " 

"  If  you  go,  there'll  be  an  end  of  you  ;  and  if  you  don't  go, 
there'll  be  an  end  of  you !     Still,  it's  best  to  go." 

"  But  if  anything  happens,  how  shall  I  get  out  of  it  ?  " 

"  Listen,  grandson  !  When  you  go  to  the  merchant's  he  will 
offer  you  brandy;  don't  you  drink  much — drink  only  a  moderate 
allowance.  Afterwards  the  merchant  will  take  you  into  the  room 
in  which  his  daughter  is  lying  in  her  coffin,  and  will  lock  you  in 
there.     You  will  read  out  from  the  psalter  all  the   evening,  and 


2S2  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

up  to  midnight.  Exactly  at  midnight  a  strong  wind  will  sud- 
denly begin  to  blow,  the  coffin  will  begin  to  shake,  "its  lid  will 
fall  off.  Well,  as  soon  as  these  horrors  begin,  jump  on  to  the 
stove  as  quick  as  you  can,  squeeze  yourself  into  a  corner,  and 
silently  offer  up  piayers.     She  won't  find  you  there." 

Half  an  hour  later  came  the  merchant,  and  besought  the 
SolcMer,  crying : 

"Ah,  Soldier!  there's  a  daughter  of  mine  dead  ;  come  and 
read  the  psalter  over  her." 

The  Soldier  took  a  psalter  and  went  off  to  the  merchant's 
house.  The  merchant  was  greatly  pleased,  seated  him  at  his 
table,  and  began  offering  him  brandy  to  drink.  The  Soldier 
drank,  but  only  moderately,  and  declined  to  drink  any  more. 
The  merchant  took  him  by  the  hand  and  led  him  to  the  room  in 
which  the  corpse  lay. 

"  Now  then,"  he  says,  "  read  away  at  your  psalter." 

Then  he  went  out  and  locked  the  door.  There  was  no  help 
for  it,  so  the  Soldier  took  to  his  psalter  and  read  and  read. 
Exactly  at  midnight  there  was  a  great  blast  of  wind,  the  coffin 
began  to  rock,  its  lid  flew  off.  The  Soldier  jumped  quickly  on 
to  the  stove,  hid  himself  in  a  corner,  guarded  himself  by  a  sign 
of  the  cross,  and  began  whispering  prayers.  Meanwhile  the 
witch  had  leapt  out  of  the  coffin,  and  was  rushing  about  from 
side  to  side — now  here,  now  there.  Then  there  came  running 
up  to  her  countless  swarms  of  evil  spirits  ;  the  room  was  full  of 
them  ! 

"  What  are  you  looking  for  ?  "  say  they. 

"  A  soldier.  He  was  reading  here  a  moment  ago,  and  now 
he's  vanished  !  " 

The  devils  eagerly  set  to  work  to  hunt  him  up.  They 
searched  and  searched,  they  rummaged  in  all  the  corners.  At 
last  they  cast  their  eyes  on  the  stove  ;  at  that  moment,  luckily 
for  the  Soldier,  the  cocks  began  to  crow.  In  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  all  the  devils  had  vanished,  and  the  witch  lay  all  of  a 
heap  on  the  floor.  The  Soldier  got  down  from  the  stove,  laid 
her  body  in  the  coffin,  covered  it  up  all   right  w'th  the   lid,  and 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  2&3 

ЬЛоок  himself  again  to  his  psalter.  At  daybreak  came  the 
master  of  the  house,  opened  the  door,  and  said — 

"  Hail.  Soldier  !  " 

"  I  wish  you  good  health,  master  merchant." 

"  Have  you  spent  the  night  comfortably  ?  " 

"  Glory  be  to  God  !  yes." 

a  There  are  fifty  roubles  for  you,  but  come  again,  friend,  and 
lead  another  night." 

"  Very  good,  I'll  come." 

The  Soldier  returned  home,  lay  down  on  the  bench,  and 
slept  till  evening.     Then  he  awoke  and  said — 

Grandfather,  the  merchant  bid  me  go  and  read  the  psalter 
another  night.     Should  I  go  or  not  ? " 

"  If  you  go,  you  won't  remain  alive,  and  if  you  don't  go,  just 
the  same !  But  you'd  better  go.  Don't  drink  much  brandy, 
drink  just  what  is  right ;  and  when  the  wind  blows,  and  the 
coffin  begins  to  rock,  slip  straight  into  the  stove.  There  no  one 
will  find  you." 

The  Soldier  got  ready  and  went  to  the  merchant's,  who 
seated  him  at  table,  and  began  plying  him  with  brandy.  After- 
wards he  took  him  to  where  the  corpse  was,  and  locked  him  into 
the  room. 

The  Soldier  went  on  reading,  reading.  Midnight  came,  the 
wind  blew,  the  coffin  began  to  rock,  the  coffin  lid  fell  afar  off  on 
the  ground.  He  was  into  the  stove  in  a  moment.  Out  jumped 
the  witch  and  began  rushing  about ;  round  her  swarmed  devils, 
the  room  was  full  of  them  ! 

"  What  are  you  looking  for  ?  "  they  cry. 

"Why,  there  he  was  reading  a  moment  ago,  and  now  he's 
vanished  out  of  sight.     I  can't  find  him." 

The  devils  flung  themselves  on  the  stove. 

"  Here's  the  place,"  they  cried,  "where  he  was  last  night !  " 

There  was  the  place,  but  he  wasn't  there !  This  way  and 
that  they  rushed.  Suddenly  the  cocks  began  to  crow,  the  devils 
vanished,  the  witch  lay  stretched  on  the  floor. 

The  Soldier  stayed  awhile  to  recover  his  breath,  crept  out 


284  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

of  the  stove,  put  the  merchant's  daughter  back  in  her  coffin,  and 
took  to  reading  the  psalter  again.  Presently  he  looks  round, 
the  day  has  already  dawned.     His  host  arrives  : 

"  Hail,  Soldier !  "  says  he. 

"  I  wish  you  good  health,  master  merchant." 

"  Has  the  night  passed  comfortably  ?  " 

"  Glory  be  to  God  !  yes." 

"  Come  along  here,  then." 

The  merchant  led  him  out  of  the  room,  gave  him  a  hundred 
roubles,  and  said — 

"  Come,  please,  and  read  here  a  th:rd  night ;  I  sha'n't  treat 
you  badly." 

"  Good,  I'll  come." 

The  Soldier  returned  home. 

"  Well,  grandson,  what  has  God  sent  you  ? "  says  his  grand- 
father. 

"Nothing  much,  grandfather!  The  merchant  told  me  to 
come  again.     Should  I  go  or  not  ? " 

"  If  you  go,  you  won't  remain  alive,  and  if  you  don't  go,  you 
won't  remain  alive  !     But  you'd  better  go." 

"  But  if  anything  happens  where  must  I  hide  ?  " 

"  I'll  tell  you,  grandson.  Buy  yourself  a  frying-pan,  and  hide 
it  so  that  the  merchant  sha'n't  see  it.  When  you  go  to  his  house 
he'll  try  to  force  a  lot  of  brandy  on  you.  You  look  out,  don't 
drink  much,  drink  just  what  you  can  stand.  At  midnight,  as 
soon  as  the  wind  begins  to  roar,  and  the  coffin  to  rock,  do  you 
that  very  moment  climb  on  to  the  stove-pipe,  and  cover  yourself 
over  with  the  frying-pan.     There  no  one  will  find  you  out." 

The  Soldier  had  a  good  sleep,  bought  himself  a  frying-pan,* 
hid  it  under  his  cloak,  and  towards  evening  went  to  the  merchant's 
house.  The  merchant  seated  him  at  table  and  took  to  plying 
him  with  liquor — tried  every  possible  kind  of  invitation  and 
cajolery  on  him. 

"No,"  says  the  Soldier,  "that  will  do.  I've  had  my  whack. 
I  won't  have  any  more." 

•  The  Russian  skovoroda  is  a  sort  of  stew-pan,  of  great  size,  without  a  handle. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  285 

"Well,  then,  if  you  won't  drink,  come  along  and  read  your 
psalter." 

The  merchant  took  him  to  his  dead  daughter,  left  him  alone 
with  her,  and  locked  the  door. 

The  Soldier  read  and  read.  Midnight  came,  the  wind  blew, 
the  coffin  began  to  rock,  the  cover  flew  afar  off.  The  Soldier 
jumped  up  on  the  stove-pipe,  covered  himself  with  the  frying-pan, 
protected  himself  with  a  sign  of  the  cross,  and  awaited  what  was 
going  to  happen.  Out  jumped  the  witch  and  began  rushing 
about.  Round  her  came  swarming  countless  devils,  the  izba 
was  full  of  them  !  They  rushed  about  in  search  of  the  Soldier  ; 
they  looked  into  the  stove — 

"  Here's  the  place,"  they  cried,  "  where  he  was  last  night." 

"  There's  the  place,  but  he's  not  there." 

This  way  and  that  they  rush, — cannot  see  him  anywhere. 
Presently  there  stepped  across  the  threshold  a  very  old  devil. 

"  What  are  you  looking  for  ?  " 

"The  Soldier.  He  was  reading  here  a  moment  ago,  and  now 
he's  disappeared." 

"  Ah !  no  eyes !  And  who's  that  sitting  on  the  stove-pipe 
there  ? " 

The  Soldier's  heart  thumped  like  anything ;  he  all  but  tumbled 
down  on  the  ground ! 

"  There  he  is,  sure  enough  ! "  cried  the  devils,  "  but  how  are 
we  to  settle  him.     Surely  it's  impossible  to  reach  him  there  ?  " 

"  Impossible,  forsooth  !  Run  and  lay  your  hands  on  a  candle- 
end  which  has  been  lighted  without  a  blessing  having  been 
uttered  over  it." 

In  an  instant  the  devils  brought  the  candle-end,  piled  up  a 
lot  of  wood  right  under  the  stove-pipe,  and  set  it  alight.  The 
flame  leapt  high  into  the  air,  the  Soldier  began  to  roast :  first  one 
foot,  then  the  other,  he  drew  up  under  him. 

"  Now,"  thinks  he,  "  my  death  has  come  !  " 

All  of  a  sudden,  luckily  for  him,  the  cocks  began  to  crow, 
the  devils  vanished,  the  witch  fell  flat  on  the  floor.  The  soldier 
jumped  down  from  the  stove-pipe,  and  began  putting  out  the 


28G  к  US  SI  А  N  FOL  К-  ТА  LES. 

fire.  When  he  had  put  it  out  he  set  every  thing  to  rights,  placed 
the  merchant's  daughter  in  her  coffin,  covered  it  up  with  the 
lid,  and  betook  himself  to  reading  the  psalter.  At  daybreak 
came  the  merchant,  and  listened  at  the  door  to  find  out  whether 
the  Soldier  was  alive  or  not.  When  he  heard  his  /oice  he 
opened  the  door  and  said — 

"Hail,  Soldier!" 

"  I  wish  you  good  health,  master  merchant." 

"  Have  you  passed  the  night  comfortably  ?  " 

"  Glory  be  to  God,  I've  seen  nothing  bad." 

The  merchant  gave  him  a  hundred  and  fifty  roubles,  and 
said — 

"You've  done  a  deal  of  work,  Soldier!  do  a  little  more. 
Come  here  to-night  and  carry  my  daughter  to  the  graveyard." 

"  Good,  I'll  come." 

"  Well,  friend,  what  has  God  given  ?  " 

"Glory  be  to  God,  grandfather,  I've  got  off  safe  !  The  mer- 
chant has  asked  me  to  be  at  his  house  to-night,  to  carry  his 
daughter  to  the  graveyard.     Should  I  go  or  not  ?  " 

"  If  you  go,  you  won't  be  alive,  and  if  you  don't  go,  you  won't 
be  alive.     But  you  must  go ;  it  will  be  better  so." 

"  But  what  must  I  do  ?  tell  me." 

"  Well  this.  When  you  get  to  the  merchant's,  everything  will 
be  ready  there.  At  ten  o'clock  the  relations  of  the  deceased  will 
begin  taking  leave  of  her;  and  afterwards  they  will  fasten  three 
iron  hoops  round  the  coffin,  and  place  it  on  the  funeral  car ;  and 
at  eleven  o'clock  they  will  tell  you  to  take  it  to  the  graveyard. 
Do  you  drive  of  with  the  coffin,  but  keep  a  sharp  look-out.  One 
of  the  hoops  will  snap.  Never  fear,  keep  your  seat  bravely;  a 
second  will  snap,  keep  your  seat  all  the  same ;  but  when  the 
third  hoop  snaps,  instantly  jump  on  to  the  horse's  back  and 
through  the  duga  (the  wooden  arch  above  its  neck),  and  run 
away  backwards.     Do  that,  and  no  harm  will  come  to  you   " 

The  Soldier  lay  down  to  sleep,  slept  till  the  evening,  and  then 
went  to  the  merchant's.  At  ten  o'clock  the  relations  began 
taking  leave  of  the  deceased  ;   then  they  set  to  work  to  fasten 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  287 

iron  hoops  round  the  coffin.     They  fastened  the  hoops,  set  the 
coffin  on  the  funeral  car,  and  cried — 

"  Now  then,  Soldier  !  drive  off,  and  God  speed  you  ! 

The  Soldier  got  into  the  car  and  set  off :  at  first  he  drove 
slowly,  but  as  soon  as  he  was  out  of  sight  he  let  the  horse  go 
full  split.  Away  he  galloped,  but  all  the  while  he  kept  an  eye  on 
the  coffin.  Snap  went  one  hoop — and  then  another.  The  witch 
began  gnashing  her  teeth. 

"  Stop  !  "  she  cried,  "you  sha'n't  escape  !  I  shall  eat  you  ur 
in  another  moment." 

"  No,  dovey  !  Soldiers  are  crown  property ;  no  one  is  allowed 
to  eat  them." 

"Here  the  last  hoop  snapped:  on  to  the  horse  jumped  the 
Soldier,  and  through  the  duga,  and  then  set  off  running  back- 
wards. The  witch  leapt  out  of  the  coffin  and  tore  away  in  pur- 
suit. Lighting  on  the  Soldier's  footsteps  she  followed  them  back 
to  the  horse,  ran  right  round  it,  saw  the  soldier  wasn't  there,  and 
set  off  again  in  pursuit  of  him.  She  ran  and  ran,  lighted  again 
on  his  footsteps,  and  again  came  back  to  the  horse.  Utterly  at 
her  wit's  end,  she  did  the  same  thing  some  ten  times  over.  Sud- 
denly the  cocks  began  crowing.  There  lay  the  witch  stretched 
out  fiat  on  the  road  !  The  Soldier  picked  her  up,  put  her  in  the 
coffin,  slammed  the  lid  down,  and  drove  her  to  the  graveyard. 
When  he  got  there  he  lowered  the  coffin  into  the  grave,  shovelled 
the  earth  on  top  of  it,  and  returned  to  the  merchant's  house. 

"  I've  done  it  all,"  says  he  ;  "  catch  hold  of  your  horse." 

When  the  merchant  saw  the  Soldier  he  stared  at  him  with 
wide-open  eyes. 

"  Well,  Soldier ! "  said  he,  "  I  know  a  good  deal !  and  as  to 
my  daughter,  we  needn't  speak  of  her.  She  was  awfully  sharp, 
she  was  !  But,  really,  you  know  more  than  we  do  ! " 

"  Come  now,  master  merchant !  pay  me  for  my  work." 

So  the  merchant  handed  him  over  two  hundred  roubles.  The 
soldier  took  them,  thanked  him,  and  then  went  home,  and  gave 
his  family  a  feast. 

[The  next  chapter  will  contain  a  number  of  vampire  stories  which,  in  some  respects, 


288  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

resemble  these  tales  of  homicidal  corpses.  But  most  of  there  oelong,  I  think,  to  a 
separate  group,  due  to  a  different  myth  or  superstition  from  that  which  has  given  rise 
to  such  tales  as  those  quoted  above.  The  vampire  is  actuated  by  a  thirst  which  can  b<» 
quenched  only  by  blood,  and  which  impels  it  to  go  forth  from  the  grave  and  destrnv. 
But  the  enchanted  corpses  which  rise  at  midnight,  and  attempt  to  rend  their  watchers, 
appear  to  owe  their  ferocity  to  demoniacal  possession.  After  the  death  of  a  witch  her 
body  is  liable,  says  popular  tradition,  to  be  tenanted  by  a  devil  (as  may  be  seen  from 
No.  ii.),  and  to  corpses  thus  possessed,  have  been  attributed  by  the  storytellers  the 
terrible  deeds  which  Indian  tales  relate  of  Rakshasas  and  other  evil  spirits.  Thus  in 
the  story  of  Nischayadatta,  in  the  seventh  book  of  the  "  Kathasaritsagara,"  the  hern 
and  the  four  pilgrims,  his  companions,  have  to  pass  a  night  in  a  deserted  temple  ol 
Siva.  It  is  haunted  by  a  Yakshini,  a  female  demon,  who  turns  men  by  spells  into 
brutes,  and  then  eats  them  ;  so  they  sit  watching  and  praying  beside  a  fire  round  whicb 
they  have  traced  a  circle  of  ashes.  At  midnight  the  demon-enchantress  arrives,  dancing 
and  "blowing  on  a  flute  made  of  a  dead  man's  bone."  Fixing  her  eyes  on  one  of  the 
pilgrims,  she  mutters  a  spell,  accompanied  by  a  wild  dance.  Out  of  the  head  of  the 
doomed  man  grows  a  horn;  he  loses  all  command  over  himself,  leaps  up,  and  dances  into 
the  flames.  The  Yakshini  seizes  his  half-burnt  corpse  and  devours  it.  Then  she 
treats  the  second  and  the  third  pilgrim  in  the  same  way.  But  just  as  she  is  turning  to 
the  fourth,  she  lays  her  flute  on  the  ground.  In  an  instant  the  hero  seizes  it,  and 
begins  to  blow  it  and  to  dance  wildly  around  the  Yakshini,  fixing  his  eyes  upon  her 
and  applying  to  her  the  words  of  her  own  spell.  Deprived  by  it  of  all  power,  she  sub- 
mits, and  from  that  time  forward  renders  the  hero  good  service.*] 

In  one  of  the  skazkas  a  malignant  witch  is  destroyed 
by  a  benignant  female  power.  It  had  been  predicted  that 
a  certain  baby  princess  would  begin  flying  about  the  world 
as  soon  as  she  was  fifteen.  So  her  parents  shut  her  up  in 
a  building  in  which  she  never  saw  the  light  of  day,  nor  the 
face  of  a  man.  For  it  was  illuminated  by  artificial  means, 
and  none  but  women  had  access  to  it.  But  one  day,  when 
her  nurses  and  Mamzeli  had  gone  to  a  feast  at  the  palace, 
she  found  a  door  unlocked,  and  made  her  way  into  the  sun- 
light. After  this  her  attendants  were  obliged  to  allow  her 
to  go  where  she  wished,  when  her  parents  were  away.  As 
she  went  roaming  about  the  palace  she  came  to  a  cage  "  in 
which  a  Zhar-Plitsa^  lay    [as  if]    dead."    This  bird,  her 

*  From  Professor  Brockhaus's  summary  in  the  "  Berichte  der  phil.-hist.  Classe  de- 
Konigl.  Sachs.  Gessellschaft  der  Wissenschaften,"  1S61,  pp.  215,  16. 

t  For  an  account  of  this  mythological  bird,  see  the  njte  on  next  page.  Ornitholo- 
gically,  the  Zhar-ptitsa  is  the  Cassowary. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  289 

guardians  told  her,  slept  soundly  all  day,  but  at  night 
her  papa  flew  about  on  it.  Farther  on  she  came  to  a 
veiled  portrait.  When  the  veil  was  lifted,  she  cried  in 
astonishment  "  Can  such  beauty  be  ?  "  and  determined  to 
fly  on  the  Zhar-Ptitsa  to  the  original  of  the  picture.  So  at 
night  she  sought  the  Zhar-Ptitsa,  which  was  sitting  up  and 
flapping  its  wings,  and  asked  whether  she  might  fly  abroad 
on  its  back.  The  bird  consented  and  bore  her  far  away. 
Three  times  it  carried  her  to  the  room  of  the  prince  whose 
portrait  she  had  so  much  admired.  On  the  first  and  second 
occasion  he  remained  asleep  during  her  visit,  having  been 
plunged  into  a  magic  slumber  by  the  Zhar-Ptitsa.  But 
during  her  third  visit  he  awoke,  "  and  he  and  she  wept  and 
wept,  and  exchanged  betrothal  rings."  So  long  did  they 
remain  talking  that,  before  the  Zhar-Ptitsa  and  his  rider 
could  get  back,  "  the  day  began  to  dawn — the  bird  sank 
lower  and  lower  and  fell  to  the  ground."  Then  the  princess, 
thinking  it  was  really  dead,  buried  it  in  the  earth — having 
first  cut  off  its  wings,  and  "  attached  them  to  herself  so  as 
to  walk  more  lightly." 

After  various  adventures  she  comes  to  a  land  of  mourn- 
ing. "  Why  are  you  so  mournful  ?  "  she  asks*  "  Because 
our  king's  son  has  gone  out  of  his  mind,"  is  the  reply. 
"  He  eats  a  man  every  night."  Thereupon  she  goes  to  the 
king  and  obtains  leave  to  watch  the  prince  by  night.  As 
the  clock  strikes  twelve  the  prince,  who  is  laden  with  chains, 
makes  a  rush  at  her  ■  but  the  wings  of  the  Zhar-Ptitsa 
rustle  around  her,  and  he  sits  down  again.  This  takes 
place  three  times,  after  which  the  light  goes  out.  She 
leaves  the  room  in  search  of  the  means  of  rekindling  it, 
sees  a  glimmer  in  the  distance,  and  sets  off  with  a  lantern 
in  search  of  it.      Presently  she  finds  an   old  witch  who  is 

J9 


290  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

sitting  before  a  fire,  above  which  seethes  a  cauldron. 
"What  have  you  got  there  ?  "  she  asks.  "When  this  cauld- 
ron seethes,"  replies  the  witch,  "within  ;t  does  the  heart 
of  Prince  Ivan  rage  madly." 

Pretending  to  be  merely  getting  a  light,  the  Princess 
contrives  to  splash  the  seething  liquid  over  the  witch,  who 
immediately  falls  dead.  Then  she  looks  into  the  cauldron, 
and  there,  in  truth,  she  sees  the  Prince's  heart.  When  she 
returns  to  his  room  he  has  recovered  his  senses.  "Thank 
you  for  bringing  a  light,"  he  says.  "  Why  am  I  in  chains  ?  " 
"Thus  and  thus,"  says  she.  "You  went  out  of  your  mind 
and  ate  people."     Whereat  he  wonders  greatly.* 

The  Zhar-Piitsa,  or  Fire-Bird,  which  plays  so  important 
a  part  in  this  story,  is  worthy  of  special  notice.  Its  name 
is  sufficient  to  show  its  close  connection  with  flame  or  light,t 
and  its  appearance  corresponds  with  its  designation.  Its 
feathers  blaze  with  silvery  or  golden  sheen,  its  eyes  shine 
like  crystal,  it  dwells  in  a  golden  cage.  In  the  depth  of  the 
night  it  flies  into  a  garden,  and  lights  it  up  as  brightly  as 
could  a  thousand  burning  fires.  A  single  feather  from  its 
tail  illuminates  a  dark  room.  It  feeds  upon  golden  apples 
which  have  the  power  of  bestowing  youth  and  beauty,  or 
according  to  a  Croatian  version,  on  magic-grasses.  Its  song 
according  to  Bohemian  legends,  heals  the  sick  and  restores 
sight  to  the  blind.  We  have  already  seen  that,  as  the 
Phoenix,  of  which  it  seems  to  be  a  Slavonic  counterpart,  dies 
in  the  flame  from  which  it  springs  again  into  life,  so  the 
Zhar-Ptitsa  sinks  into  a  death-like  slumber  when  the  day 
dawns,  to  awake  to  fresh  life  after  the  sunset. 

»  Khudyakof,  No.  1 10.     From  the  Nijegorod  Government. 

1  2nar=g\owiug  heat,  as  of  a  furnace  ;  zhar-^titsa— the  glow-bird.  Its  name 
among  the  Czekhs  and  Slovaks  is  Ptak  Ohnivdk.  The  heathens  Slavonians  are  said 
te  have  worshipped  Ogon  or  Agon,  Fire,  the  counterpart  of  the  Vedic  Agni.  Agon 
is  stil.  the  ordinary  Russia i  word  for  fire,  the  equivalent  of  the  Latin  ignis. 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  291 

One  of  the  skazkas  *  about  the  Zhar-Ptitsa  closely 
resembles  the  well-known  German  tale  of  the  Golden  Bird.t 
But  it  is  a  "  Chap-book  "  story,  and  therefore  of  doubtful 
origin.  King  Vuislaf  has  an  apple-tree  which  bears  golden 
fruits.  These  are  stolen  by  a  Zhar-Ptitsa  which  flies  every 
night  into  the  garden,  so  he  orders  his  sons  to  keep  watch 
there  by  turns.  The  elder  brothers  cannot  keep  awake, 
and  see  nothing  ;  but  the  youngest  of  the  three,  Prince  Ivan, 
though  he  fails  to  capture  the  bird,  secures  one  of  its  tail- 
feathers.  After  a  time  he  leaves  his  home  and  goes  forth 
in  search  of  the  bird.  Aided  by  a  wolf,  he  reaches  the 
garden  in  which  the  Zhar-Ptitsa  lives,  and  succeeds  in  tak- 
ing it  out  of  its  golden  cage.  But  trying,  in  spite  of  the 
wolf's  warning,  to  carry  off  the  cage  itself,  an  alarm  is  sound- 
ed, and  he  is  taken  prisoner.  After  various  other  adventures 
he  is  killed  by  his  envious  brothers,  but  of  course  all  comes 
right  in  the  end.  In  a  version  of  the  story  which  comes 
from  the  Bukovina,  one  of  the  incidents  is  detailed  at  greater 
length  than  in  either  the  German  or  the  Russian  tale. 
When  the  hero  has  been  killed  by  his  brothers,  and  they 
have  carried  off  the  Zhar-Ptitsa,  and  their  victim's  golden 
steed,  and  his  betrothed  princess — as  long  as  he  lies  dead, 
the  princess  remains  mute  and  mournful,  the  horse  refuses 
to  eat,  the  bird  is  silent,  and  its  cage  is  lustreless.  But  as 
soon  as  he  comes  back  to  life,  the  princess  regains  her 
spirits,  and  the  horse  its  appetite  ;  The  Zhar-Ptitsa  recom- 
mences its  magic  song,  and  its  cage  flashes  anew  like  fire. 
In  another  skazka  %  a  sportman  finds  in  a  forest  "  a 
golden  feather  of  the  Zhar-Ptitsa  ;  like  fire  does  the  feather 
shine  !  "     Against  the   advice  of   his   "  heroic   steed,"  he 

*  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  n.     See  also  the  notes  in  viii.  p.  620,  etc. 
t  Grimm's  KM.,  No.  57.    See  the  notes  in  Bd.  ill.  p.  98. 
X  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  12. 


292  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

picks  up  the  feather  and  takes  it  to  the  king,  who  sends  him 
in  search  of  the  bird  itself.  Then  he  has  wheat  scattered 
on  the  ground,  and  at  dawn  he  hides  behind  a  tree  near  it. 
"  Presently  the  forest  begins  to  roar,  the  sea  rises  in  waves, 
and  the  Zhar-Ptitsa  flies  up,  lights  upon  the  ground  and 
begins  to  peck  the  wheat."  Then  the  "  heroic  steed  " 
gallops  up,  sets  its  hoof  upon  the  bird's  wing,  and  presses 
it  to  the  ground,  so  that  the  shooter  is  able  to  bind  it  with 
cords,  and  take  it  to  the  king.  In  a  variant  of  the  story 
the  bird  is  captured  by  means  of  a  trap — a  cage  in  which 
"  pearls  large  and  small  "  have  been  strewed. 

I  had  intended  to  say  something  about  the  various 
golden  haired  or  golden-horned  animals  which  figure  in  the 
Skazkas,  but  it  will  be  sufficient  for  the  present  to  refer  to 
the  notices  of  them  which  occur  in  Prof.  de.  Gubernatis' 
"  Zoological  Mythology."  And  now  I  will  bring  this  chap- 
ter to  a  close  with  the  following  weird  story  of 

The  Warlock.* 
There  was  once  a  Moujik,  and  he  had  three  married  sons. 
He  lived  a  long  while,  and  was  looked  upon  by  the  village  as  a 
Koldun  [or  wizard].  When  he  was  about  to  die,  he  gave  orders 
that  his  sons'  wives  should  keep  watch  over  him  [after  his  death] 
for  three  nights,  taking  one  night  apiece  ;  that  his  body  should 
be  placed  in  the  outer  chamber,!  and  that  his  sons'  wives 
should  spin  wool  to  make  him  a  caftan.  He  ordered,  moreover, 
that  no  cross  should  be  placed  upon  him,  and  that  none  should 
be  worn  by  his  daughters-in-law. 

Well,  that  same  night  the  eldest  daughter-in-law  took  her 
seat  beside  him  with  some  grey  wool,  and  began  spinning. 
Midnight  arrives.     Says  the  father-in-law  from  his  coffin  : 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  104.     From  the  Orel  Government. 

t  The  kholodnaya  isba — the  "  cold  izba,"  as  opposed  to  the  "  warm  izba"  or  living 
room." 


MAGIC  AND  WITCHCRAFT.  293 

"  Daughter-in-law,  art  thou  there  ?  " 

She  was  terribly  frightened,  but  answered,  "  I  am."  "  Art 
thou  sitting?"  "I  sit."  "Dost  thou  spin?"  I  spin."  "Grey 
vool?"    "Grey."     "  For  a  caftan  ?  "    "  For  a  caftan." 

He  made  a  movement  towards  her.  Then  a  second  time  he 
asked  again — 

"  Daughter-in-law,  art  thou  there  ?  " 

"  I  am."  "  Art  thou  sitting  ? "  "I  sit."  "  Dost  thou  spin  ?  " 
"I  spin."  "  Grey  wool  ?  "  "Grey."  "  For  a  caftan?"  "For  a 
caftan." 

She  shrank  into  the  corner.  He  moved  again,  came  a  couple 
of  yards  nearer  her. 

A  third  time  he  made  a  movement.  She  offered  up  ng, 
prayer.    He  strangled  her,  and  then  lay  down  again  in  his  coffin 

His  sons  removed  her  body,  and  next  evening,  in  obedience 
to  his  paternal  behest,  they  sent  another  of  his  daughters-in-law 
to  keep  watch.  To  her  just  the  same  thing  happened:  he 
strangled  her  as  he  had  done  the  first  one. 

But  the  third  was  sharper  than  the  other  two.  She  declared 
she  had  taken  off  her  cross,  but  in  reality  she  kept  it  on.  She 
took  her  seat  and  spun,  but  said  prayers  to  herself  all  the  while. 

Midnight  arrives.     Says  her  father-in-law  from  his  coffin — 

"  Daughter-in-law,  art  thou  there  ?  " 

"  I  am,"  she  replies.  "Art  thou  sitting?"  "  I  sit."  "  Dost 
thou  spin?"  "I  spin."  "Grey  wool?"  "Grey."  "For  a 
caftan  ? "     "  For  a  caftan." 

Just  the  same  took  place  a  second  time.  The  third  time,  just 
as  he  was  going  to  rush  at  her,  she  laid  the  cross  upon  him.  He 
fell  down  and  died.  She  looked  into  the  coffin  ;  there  lay  ever 
so  much  money.  The  father-in-law  wanted  to  take  it  away  with 
him,  or,  at  all  events,  that  only  some  one  who  could  outdo  him  in 
cunning  should  get  it.* 

•  The  etymology  of  the  word  kolduK  is  still,  I  believe,  a  moot  point.  The  dis- 
covery of  the  money  in  the  warlock's  coffin  seems  an  improbable  incident.  In  the 
original  version  of  the  story  the  wizard  may,  perhaps,  have  turned  into  a  heap  of 
gold  (see  above,  p.  231,  on  "  Gold-men  "). 


294  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

In  one  of  the  least  intelligible  of  the  West  Highland 
tales,  there  is  a  scene  which  somewhat  resembles  the 
"  lykewake  "  in  this  skazka.  It  is  called  "  The  Girl  and 
the  Dead  Man,"  and  relates,  among  other  strange  things, 
how  a  youngest  sister  took  service  in  a  house  where  a 
corpse  lay.  "  She  sat  to  watch  the  dead  man,  and  she  was 
sewing •  in  the  middle  of  night  he  rose  up,  and  screwed 
up  a  grin.  '  If  thou  dost  not  lie  down  properly,  I  will  give 
thee  the  one  leathering  with  a  stick.'  He  lay  down.  At 
the  end  of  a  while,  he  rose  on  one  elbow,  and  screwed  up 
a  grin  ;  and  the  third  time  he  rose  and  screwed  up  a  grin. 
When  he  rose  the  third  time,  she  struck  him  a  lounder  of 
the  stick ;  the  stick  stuck  to  the  dead  man,  and  the  hand 
stuck  to  the  stick,  and  out  they  were."  Eventually  "she 
got  a  peck  of  gold  and  a  peck  of  silver,  and  the  vessel  of 
cordial  "  and  returned  home.* 

The  obscurity  of  the  Celtic  tale  forms  a  striking  con- 
trast to  the  lucidity  of  the  Slavonic.  The  Russian  peasant 
likes  a  clear  statement  of  facts  ;  the  Highlander  seems, 
like  Coleridge's  Scotch  admirer,  to  find  a  pleasure  in  seeing 
"  an  idea  looming  out  of  the  mist." 

*  Campbell,  No  13,  vol.  i.  p.  21$. 


GHOST  STORIES.  2»5 


CHAPTER  V. 


GHOST    STORIES. 


The  Russian  peasants  have  very  confused  ideas  about  the 
local  habitation  of  the  disembodied  spirit,  after  its  former 
tenement  has  been  laid  in  the  grave.  They  seem,  from 
the  language  of  their  funeral  songs,  sometimes  to  regard 
the  departed  spirit  as  residing  in  the  coffin  which  holds 
the  body  from  which  it  has  been  severed,  sometimes  to 
imagine  that  it  hovers  around  the  building  which  used  to 
be  its  home,  or  flies  abroad  on  the  wings  of  the  winds.  In 
the  food  and  money  and  other  necessaries  of  existence  still 
placed  in  the  coffin  with  the  corpse,  may  be  seen  traces  of 
an  old  belief  in  a  journey  which  the  soul  was  forced  to 
undertake  after  the  death  of  the  body;  in  the  pomniki  or 
feasts  in  memory  of  the  dead,  celebrated  at  certain  short 
intervals  after  a  death,  and  also  on  its  anniversary,  may 
be  clearly  recognized  the  remains  of  a  faith  in  the  con- 
tinued residence  of  the  dead  in  the  spot  where  they  had 
been  buried,  and  in  their  subjection  to  some  physical  suffer- 
ings, their  capacity  for  certain  animal  enjoyments.  The 
two  beliefs  run  side  by  side  with  each  other,  sometimes 
clashing  and  producing  strange  results — all  the  more 
strange  when  they  show  signs  of  an  attempt  having  been 
made  to  reconcile  them  with  Christian  ideas.* 

*  Some  account  of  Russian  funeral  rites  and  beliefs,  and  of  the  dirges  which  are 
sung  atburyings  and  memorials  of  the  dead,  will  be  found  in  the  "  Songs  of  the  Rus- 
sian People."  pp.  309-344. 


296  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

Of  a  heavenly  or  upper-world  home  of  departed  spirits, 
neither  the  songs  nor  the  stories  of  the  people,  so  far  as  I 
am  aware,  make  mention.  But  that  there  is  a  country 
beyond  the  sky,  inhabited  by  supernatural  beings  of  magic 
power  and  unbounded  wealth,  is  stated  in  a  number  of 
tales  of  the  well-known  "  Jack  and  the  Bean-stalk  "  type. 
Of  these  the  following  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen. 

The  Fox-Physician.* 
There  once  was  an  old  couple.  The  old  man  planted  a  cab- 
bage-head in  the  cellar  under  the  floor  of  his  cottage  ;  the  old 
woman  planted  one  in  the  ash-hole.  The  old  woman's  cabbage, 
in  the  ash-hole,  withered  away  entirely  ;  but  the  old  man's  grew 
and  grew,  grew  up  to  the  floor.  The  old  man  took  his  hatchet  and 
cut  a  hole  in  the  floor  above  the  cabbage.  The  cabbage  went  on 
growing  again  ;  grew,  grew  right  up  to  the  ceiling.  Again  the  old 
man  took  his  hatchet  and  cut  a  hole  in  the  ceiling  above  the  cab- 
bage. The  cabbage  grew  and  grew,  grew  right  up  to  the  sky. 
How  was  the  old  man  to  get  a  look  at  the  head  of  the  cabbage  ? 
He  began  climbing  up  the  cabbage-stalk,  climbed  and  climbed, 
climbed  and  climbed,  climbed  right  up  to  the  sky,  cut  a  hole  in 
the  sky,  and  crept  through.  There  he  sees  a  mill  f  standing. 
The  mill  gives  a  turn — out  come  a  pie  and  a  cake  with  a  pot  of 
stewed  grain  on  top. 

The  old  man  ate  his  fill,  drank  his  fill,  and  then  lay  down  to 
sleep.  When  he  had  slept  enough  he  slid  down  to  earth  again, 
and  cried : 

"  Old  woman  !  why,  old  woman  !  how  one  does  live  up  in 
heaven  !  There's  a  mill  there — every  time  it  turns,  out  come  a 
pie  and  a  cake,  with  a  pot  of  kasha  on  top  !  " 

"  How  can  I  get  there,  old  man  ?  " 

"  Slip  into  this  sack,  old  woman.     I'll  carry  you  up." 

The  old  woman  thought  a  bit,  and  then  got  into  the  sack. 
The  old  man  took  the  sack  in  his  teeth,  and  began  climbing  up. 

*  Afanasief,  iv.  No.  7.     From  the  Archangel  Government, 
t  Zhornovtsui,  i.e.  mill-stones,  or  a  hand-mill. 


GHOST  STORIES.  297 

to  heaven.  He  climbed  and  climbed,  long  did  he  climb.  The 
old  woman  got  tired  of  waiting  and  asked : 

"  Is  it  much  farther,  old  man  ?  " 

"  We've  half  the  way  to  go  still." 

Again  he  climbed  and  climbed,  climbed  and  climbed.  A 
second  time  the  old  woman  asked  : 

"  Is  it  much  farther,  old  man  ? " 

The  old  man  was  just  beginning  to  say  :  "  Not  much  farther 
— "when  the  sack  slipped  from  between  his  teeth,  and  the  old 
woman  fell  to  the  ground  and  was  smashed  all  to  pieces.  The 
old  man  slid  down  the  cabbage-stalk  and  picked  up  the  sack. 
But  it  had  nothing  in  it  but  bones,  and  those  broken  very  small. 
The  old  man  went  out  of  his  house  and  wept  bitterly. 

Presently  a  fox  met  him. 

"  What  are  you  crying  about,  old  man  ?  " 

"  How  can  I  help  crying  ?  My  old  woman  is  smashed  to 
pieces." 

"Hold  your  noise  !  I'll  cure  her." 

The  old  man  fell  at  the  fox's  feet 

"Only  cure  her!     I'll  pay  whatever  is  wanted." 

"  Well,  then,  heat  the  bath-room,  carry  the  old  woman  there 
along  with  a  bag  of  oatmeal  and  a  pot  of  butter,  and  then  stand 
outside  the  door;  but  don't  look  inside." 

The  old  man  heated  the  bath-room,  carried  in  what  was 
wanted,  and"  stood  outside  at  the  door.  But  the  fox  went  into 
the  bath-room,  shut  the  door,  and  began  washing  the  old 
woman's  remains  ;  washed  and  washed,  and  kept  looking  about 
her  all  the  time. 

"  How's  my  old  woman  getting  on  ?  "  asked  the  old  man. 

"Beginning  to  stir!  "  replied  the  fox,  who  then  ate  up  the 
old  woman,  collected  her  bones  and  piled  them  up  in  a  corner, 
and  set  to  work  to  knead  a  hasty  pudding. 

The  old  man  waited  and  waited.     Presently  he  asked  ; 

"  How's  my  old  woman  getting  on  ?  " 

"  Resting  a  bit !  "  cried  the  fox,  as  she  gobbled  up  the  hasty- 
pudding. 


298  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

When  she  had  finished  it  she  cried  : 

a  Old  man  !  open  the  door  wide." 

He  opened  it,  and  the  fox  sprang  out  of  the  bath-room  and 
ran  off  home.  The  old  man  went  into  the  bath-room  and  looked 
about  him.  Nothing  was  to  be  seen  but  the  old  woman's  bones 
under  the  bench — and  those  picked  so  clean  !  As  for  the  oatmeal 
and  the  butter,  they  had  all  been  eaten  up.  So  the  old  man  was 
left  alone  and  in  poverty. 

This  story  is  evidently  a  combination  of  two  widely 
differing  tales.  The  catastrophe  we  may  for  the  present 
pass  over,  but  about  the  opening  some  few  words  may  be 
said.  The  Bean-stalk  myth  is  one  which  is  found  among 
so  many  peoples  in  such  widely  distant  regions,  and  it 
deals  with  ideas  of  such  importance,  that  no  contribution 
to  its  history  can  be  considered  valueless.  Most  remark- 
able among  its  numerous  forms  are  those  American  and 
Malayo-Polynesian  versions  of  the  "  heaven-tree  "  story 
which  Mr.  Tylor  has  brought  together  in  his  "  Early  His- 
tory of  mankind."*  In  Europe  it  is  usually  found  in  a 
very  crude  and  fragmentary  form,  having  been  preserved, 
for  the  most  part,  as  the  introduction  to  some  other  story 
which  has  proved  more  attractive  to  the  popular  fancy. 
The  Russian  versions  are  all,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  of  this 
nature.  I  have  already  f  mentioned  one  of  them,  in  which, 
also,  the  Fox  plays  a  prominent  part.  Its  opening  words 
are,  "  There  once  lived  an  old  man  and  an  old  woman,  and 
they  had  a  little  daughter.  One  day  she  was  eating  beans, 
and  she  let  one  fall  on  the  ground.  The  bean  grew  and 
grew,  and  grew  right  up  to  heaven.  The  old  man  climbed 
up  to  heaven,  slipped  in  there,  walked  and  walked,  admired 

*  Pp.  341-349  of  the  first  edition.  See,  also,  for  some  other  versions  of  the  story, 
as  well  as  for  an  attempt  to  explain  it,  A.  de  Gubernatis,  "  Zoological  Mythology,"  i. 
243,  244- 

t  See  supra,  chap.  I.  p.  36. 


GHOST  STORIES.  299 

and  admired,  and  said  to  himself .'  I'll  go  and  fetch  the 
old  woman  ;  won't  she  just  be  delighted  !'"  So  he  tries  to 
carry  his  wife  up  the  bean  stalk,  but  grows  faint  and  lets 
her  fall ;  she  is  killed,  and  he  calls  in  the  Fox  as  Wailer.* 

In  a  variant  of  the  "  Fox  Physician  "  from  the  Vologda 
Government,  it  is  a  pea  which  gives  birth  to  the  wondrous 
tree.  "  There  lived  an  old  man  and  an  old  woman  ;  the 
old  man  was  rolling  a  pea  about,  and  it  fell  on  the  ground. 
They  searched  and  searched  a  whole  week,  but  they 
couldn't  find  it.  The  week  passed  by,  and  the  old  people 
saw  that  the  pea  had  begun  to  sprout.  They  watered  it 
regularly,  and  the  pea  set  to  work  and  grew  higher  than 
the  izba.  When  the  peas  ripened,  the  old  man  climbed  up 
to  where  they  were,  plucked  a  great  bundle  of  them,  and 
began  sliding  down  the  stalk  again.  But  the  bundle  fell 
out  of  the  old  man's  hands  and  killed  the  old  woman."  t 

According  to  another  variant,  "There  once  lived  a 
grandfather  and  a  grandmother,  and  they  had  a  hut.  The 
grandfather  sowed  a  bean  under  the  table,  and  the  grand- 
mother a  pea.  A  hen  gobbled  up  the  pea,  but  the  bean 
grew  up  as  high  as  the  table.  They  moved  the  table,  and 
the  bean  grew  still  higher.  They  cut  away  the  ceiling  and 
the  roof  ;  it  went  on  growing  until  it  grew  right  up  to  the 
heavens  (ficbo).  The  grandfather  climbed  up  to  heaven, 
climbed  and  climbed — there  stood  a  hut  (khatka),  its  walls 
of  pancakes,  its  benches  of  white  bread,  the  stove  of  but- 
tered curds.  He  began  to  eat,  ate  his  fill,  and  lay  down 
above  the  stove  to  sleep.  In  came  twelve  sister-goats. 
The  first  had  one  eye,  the  second  two  eyes,  the  third  three, 
and  so  on  with  the  rest,  the  last  having  twelve  eyes.  They 
saw  that  some  one  had  been  meddling  with  their  hut,  so 

*  Afanasief,  iv.  No.  9.  t  Ibid.,  iv.  No.  7.  p.  34. 


300  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

they  put  it  to  rights,  nnd  when  they  went  out  they  left  the 
one-eyed  to  keep  watch.  Next  day  the  grandfather  again 
climbed  up  there,  saw  One-Eye  and  began  to  mutter  * 
"  Sleep,  eye,  sleep  !  "  The  goat  went  to  sleep.  The  man 
ate  his  fill  and  went  away.  Next  day  the  two-eyed  kept 
watch,  and  after  it  the  three-eyed  and  so  on.  The  grand- 
father always  muttered  his  charm  "  Sleep,  eye  !  Sleep, 
second  eye  !  Sleep,  third  eye  !  "  and  so  on.  But  with  the 
twelfth  goat  he  failed,  for  he  charmed  only  eleven  of  her 
eyes.  The  goat  saw  him  with  the  twelfth  and  caught 
him," — and  there  the  story  ends.f 

In  another  instance  the  myth  has  been  turned  into  one 
of  those  tales  of  the  Munchausen  class,  the  title  of  which 
is  the  "saw  "  Ne  lyubo,  ne  slushai,  i.e.,  "  If  you  don't  like, 
don't  listen  " — the  final  words  being  understood  ;  "  but  let 
me  tell  you  a  story."  A  cock  finds  a  pea  in  the  part  of  a 
cottage  under  the  floor,  and  begins  calling  to  the  hens  ; 
the  cottager  hears  the  call,  drives  away  the  cock,  and 
pours  water  over  the  pea.  It  grows  up  to  the  floor,  up  to 
the  ceiling,  up  to  the  roof  ;  each  time  way  is  made  for  it, 
and  finally  it  grows  right  up  to  heaven  (do  nebushkd). 
Says  the  moujik  to  his  wife  : 

"Wife  !  wife,  I  say  !  shall  I  climb  up  into  heaven  and 
see  what's  going  on  there  ?  May  be  there's  sugar  there, 
and  mead — lots  of  everything !  " 

"  Climb  away,  if  you've  a  mind  to,"  replies  his  wife. 

So  he  climbs  up,  and  there  he  finds  a  large  wooden 
house.  He  enters  in  and  sees  a  stove,  garnished  with  suck- 
ing pigs  and  geese  and  pies  "  and  everything  which  the  soul 
could  desire."     But  the  stove  is  guarded  by  a  seven-eyed 

*  Prigovarivaf  =  to  say  or  sing  while  using  certain  (usually  menacing)  gestures. 
t  Afanasief,  iv.  p.  35. 


GHOST  STORIES  301 

goat ;  the  moujik  charms  six  of  the  eyes  to  sleep,  but 
overlooks  the  seventh.  With  it  the  goat  sees  him  eat  and 
drink  and  then  go  to  sleep.  The  house-master  comes  in, 
is  informed  by  the  goat  of  all  that  has  occurred,  flies  into 
a  passion,  calls  his  servants,  and  has  the  intruder  turned 
out  of  the  house.  When  the  moujik  comes  to  the  place 
where  :Ъг  pea-stalk  had  been,  "he  looks  around — no  pea- 
stalk  is  there."  He  collects  the  cobwebs  "  which  float  on 
the  summer  air,"  and  of  them  he  makes  a  cord  ;  this  he 
fastens  "  to  the  edge  of  heaven  "  and  begins  to  descend. 
Long  before  he  reaches  the  earth  he  comes  to  the  end  of 
his  cord,  so  he  crosses  himself,  and  lets  go.  Falling  into 
a  swamp,  he  remains  there  some  time.  At  last  a  duck 
builds  her  nest  on  his  head,  and  lays  an  egg  in  it.  He 
catches  hold  of  the  duck's  tail,  and  the  bird  pulls  him  out 
of  the  swamp  ;  whereupon  he  goes  home  rejoicing,  taking 
with  him  the  duck  and  her  egg,  and  tells  his  wife  all  that 
has  happened.* 

In  another  variant  it  is  an  acorn  which  is  sown  under 
the  floor.  From  it  springs  an  oak  which  grows  to  the 
skies.  The  old  man  of  the  story  climbs  up  it  in  search  of 
acorns,  and  reaches  heaven.  There  he  finds  a  hand-mill 
and  a  cock  with  a  golden  comb,  both  of  which  he  carries 
off.  The  mill  grinds  pies  and  pancakes,  and  the  old  man 
and  his  wife  live  in  plenty.  But  after  a  time  a  Barin  or 
Seigneur  steals  the  mill.  The  old  people  are  in  despair, 
but  the  golden-combed  cock  flies  after  the  mill,  perches  on 
the  Barin's  gates,  and  cries — 

"  Kukureku  !  Boyarin,  Boyarin !  Give  us  back  our 
golden,  sky-blue  mill !  " 

The  cock  is  flung  into  the  well,  but  it  drinks  all  the 

*  Afanasief,  vi.  No.  г. 


302  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

water,  flies  лр  to  the  Barin's  house,  and  there  reiterates 
tits  demand.  Then  it  is  thrown  into  the  fire,  but  it  extin- 
guishes the  flames,  flies  right  into  the  Barin's  guest-chamber, 
and  crows  as  before.  The  guests  disperse,  the  Barin  runs 
after  them,  and  the  golden-combed  cock  seizes  the  mill 
and  flies  away  with  it.* 

In  a  variant  from  the  Smolensk  Government,  it  is  the 
wife  who  climbs  up  the  pea-stalk,  while  the  husband  re- 
mains down  below.  When  she  reaches  the  top,  she  finds 
an  izbushka  or  cottage  there,  its  walls  made  of  pies,  its 
tables  of  cheese,  its  stove  of  pancakes,  and  so  forth.  After 
she  has  feasted  and  gone  to  sleep  in  a  corner,  in  come 
three  goats,  of  which  the  first  has  two  eyes  and  two  ears, 
the  second  has  three  of  each  of  these  organs,  and  the  third 
has  four.  The  old  woman  sends  to  sleep  the  ears  and  the 
eyes  of  the  first  and  the  second  goat ;  but  when  the  third 
watches  it  retains  the  use  of  its  fourth  eye  and  fourth  ear, 
in  spite  of  the  incantations  uttered  by  the  intruder,  and  so 
finds  her  out.  On  being  questioned,  she  explains  that  she 
has  come  "  from  the  earthly  realm  into  the  heavenly,"  and 
promises  not  to  repeat  her  visit  if  she  is  dismissed  in 
peace.  So  the  goats  let  her  go,  and  give  her  a  bag  of 
nuts,  apples,  and  other  good  things  to  take  with  her.  She 
slides  down  the  pea-stalk  and  tells  her  husband  all  that 
has  happened.  He  persuades  her  to  undertake  a  second 
ascent  together  with  him,  so  off  they  set  in  company,  their 
young  granddaughter  climbing  after  them.  Suddenly  the 
pea-stalk  breaks,  they  fall  headlong  and  are  never  heard 
of  again.  "  Since  that  time,"  says  the  story,  "  no  one  has 
ever  set  foot  in  that  heavenly  izbushka — so  no  one  knows 
anything  more  about  it."  t 

•  Afanasitf,  "  Legendui,"  No.  33.  t  Chudinsky,  No.  9. 


GHOST  STORIES.  303 

Clearer  and  fuller  than  these  vague  and  fragmentary 
sketches  of  a  "heavenly  realm,"  are  the  pictures  contained 
in  the  Russian  folk-tales  of  the  underground  world.  But 
it  is  very  doubtful  how  far  the  stories  in  which  they  figure 
represent  ancient  Slavonic  ideas.  In  the  name,  if  not  in 
the  nature,  of  the  Ad,  or  subterranean  abode  of  evil  spirits 
and  sinful  souls,  we  recognize  the  influence  of  the  Byzan- 
tine Hades  ;  but  most  of  the  tales  in  which  it  occurs  are 
supposed  to  draw  their  original  inspiration  from  Indian 
sources,  while  they  owe  to  Christian,  Brahmanic,  Buddhis- 
tic, and  Mohammedan  influences  the  form  in  which  they 
now  appear.  To  these  "  legends,"  as  the  folk-tales  are 
styled  in  which  the  saints  or  their  ghostly  enemies  occur, 
belongs  the  following  narrative  of — 

The  Fiddler  in  Hell.* 

There  was  a  certain  moujik  who  had  three  sons.  His  life  was 
a  prosperous  one,  and  he  laid  by  money  enough  to  fill  two  pots. 
The  one  he  buried  in  his  corn-kiln,  the  other  under  the  gate  of 
his  farmyard.  Well,  the  moui'ik  died,  and  never  said  a  word 
about  the  money  to  any  one.  One  day  there  was  a  festival  in 
the  village.  A  fiddler  was  on  his  way  to  the  revel  when,  all  of 
a  sudden,  he  sank  into  the  earth — sank  right  through  and 
tumbled  into  hell,  lighting  exactly  there  where  the  rich  moujik 
was  being  tormented. 

"  Hail,  friend  !  "  says  the  Fiddler. 

"  It's  an  ill  wind  that's  brought  you  hither ! "  f  answers  the 
moujik;  "this  is  hell,  and  in  hell  here  I  sit." 

"  What  was  it  brought  you  here,  uncle  ?  " 

"It  was  money  !  I  had  much  money  :  I  gave  none  to  the 
poor,  two  pots  of  it  did  I  bury  underground.     See  now,  they 

*  Afanasief,  v.  No.  47      From  the  Tver  Government. 

t  "  You  have  fallen  here  neladtio.  Ladno  means  "  well,"  "  propitiously,"  &c, 
also  "in  tune." 


304  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

are  going  to  torment  me,  to  beat  me  with  sticks,  to  tear  me  with 
nails." 

"  Whatever  shall  I  do  ?  "  cried  the  Fiddler.  "  Perhaps 
they'll  take  to  torturing  me  too !  " 

"  If  you  go  and  sit  on  the  stove  behind  the  chimney-pipe, 
and  don't  eat  anything  for  three  years — then  you  will  remain 
safe." 

The  Fiddler  hid  behind  the  stove-pipe.  Then  came  fiends,* 
and  they  began  to  beat  the  rich  moujik,  reviling  him  the  while, 
and  saying  : 

"  There's  for  thee,  О  rich  man.  Pots  of  money  didst  thou 
bury  but  thou  could'st  not  hide  them.  There  didst  thou  bury 
them  that  we  might  not  be  able  to  keep  watch  over  them.  At 
the  gate  people  are  always  riding  about,  the  horses  crush  our 
heads  with  their  hoofs,  and  in  the  corn-kiln  we  get  beaten  with 
flails." 

As  soon  as  the  fiends  had  gone  away  the  moujik  said  to  the 
Fiddler : 

"  If  you  get  out  of  here,  tell  my  children  to  dig  up  the  money 
— one  pot  is  buried  at  the  gate,  and  the  other  in  the  corn-kiln— 
and  to  distribute  it  among  the  poor." 

Afterwards  there  came  a  whole  roomful  of  evil  ones,  and 
they  asked  the  rich  moujik : 

"  What  have  you  got  here  that  smells  so  Russian  ?  " 

"  You  have  been  in  Russia  and  brought  away  a  Russian 
smell  with  you,"  replied  the  moujik. 

"  How  could  that  be  ?  "  they  said.  Then  they  began  look- 
ing, they  found  the  Fiddler,  and  they  shouted  : 

"  Ha,  ha,  ha!     Here's  a  Fiddler." 

They  pulled  him  off  the  stove,  and  set  him  to  work  fiddling. 
He  played  three  years,  though  it  seemed  to  him  only  three 
days.     Then  he  got  tired  and  said : 

"  Here's  a  wonder  !  After  playing  a  whole  evening  I  used 
always  to  find  all  my  fiddle-strings  snapped.     But  now,  though 

*  Netiashi  ■=  not  ours. 


GHOST  STORIES.  305 

I've  been  playing  for  three  whole  days,  they  are  all  sound.  May 
the  Lord  grant  us  his  blessing !  "  * 

No  sooner  had  he  uttered  these  words  than  every  one  of  the 
strings  snapped. 

"There  now,  brothers!"  says  the  Fiddler,  "you  can  see 
for  yourselves.  The  strings  are  snapped ;  I've  nothing  to 
play  on ! " 

"  Wait  a  bit !  "  said  one  of  the  fiends.  "  I've  got  two  hanks 
of  catgut ;  I'll  fetch  them  for  you." 

He  ran  off  and  fetched  them.  The  Fiddler  took  the  strings, 
screwed  them  up,  and  again  uttered  the  words  : 

"  May  the  Lord  grant  us  his  blessing  !  " 

In  a  moment  snap  went  both  hanks. 

"  No,  brothers  !  "  said  the  Fiddler,  "  your  strings  don't  suit 
me.  I've  got  some  of  my  own  at  home  ;  by  your  leave  I'll  go 
for  them." 

The  fiends  wouldn't  let  him  go.  "You  wouldn't  come  back," 
they  say. 

"  Well,  if  you  won't  trust  me,  send  some  one  with  me  as  an 
escort." 

The  fiends  chose  one  of  their  number,  and  sent  him  with  the 
Fiddler.  The  Fiddler  got  back  to  the  village.  There  he  could 
hear  that,  in  the  farthest  cottage,  a  wedding  was  being  cele- 
brated. 

"  Let's  go  to  the  wedding  !  "  he  cried. 

"  Come  along  !  "  said  the  fiend. 

They  entered  the  cottage.  Everyone  there  recognized  the 
Fiddler  and  cried  : 

"  Where  have  you  been  hiding  these  three  years  ?  " 

"  I  have  been  in  the  other  world  !  "    he  replied. 

They  sat  there  and  enjoyed  themselves  for  some  time. 
Then  the  fiend  beckoned  to  the  Fiddler,  saying,  "  It's  time  to 
be  off  !  "     But  the  Fiddler  replied  :  "  Wait  a  little  longer  !    I  et 

*  Gospodi  blagoslovil  exactly  our  "  God  bless  us  ;  "  with  us  now  merely  an  ex- 
pression of  surprise. 

20 


506  R  USSIA  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

me  fiddle  away  a  bit  and  cheer  up  the  young  people."  And  so 
they  remained  sitting  there  till  the  cocks  began  to  crow.  Then 
the  fiend  disappeared. 

After  that,  the  Fiddler  began  to  talk  to  the  sons  of  the  rich 
moujik,  and  said  : 

"  Your  father  bids  you  dig  up  the  money — one  potful  is 
buried  at  the  gate  and  the  other  in  the  corn-kiln — and  distribute 
the  whole  of  it  among  the  poor." 

Well,  they  dug  up  both  the  pots,  and  began  to  distribute 
the  money  among  the  poor.  But  the  more  they  gave  away  the 
money,  the  more  did  it  increase.  Then  they  carried  out  the 
pots  to  a  crossway.  Every  one  who  passed  by  took  out  of 
them  as  much  money  as  his  hand  could  grasp,  and  yet  the 
money  wouldn't  come  to  an  end.  Then  they  presented  a  peti- 
tion to  the  Emperor,  and  he  ordained  as  follows.  There  was  a 
certain  town,  the  road  to  which  was  a  very  roundabout  one. 
It  was  some  fifty  versts  long,  whereas  if  it  had  been  made  in  a 
straight  line  it  would  not  have  been  more  than  five.  And  so 
the  Emperor  ordained  that  a  bridge  should  be  made  the  whole 
way.  Well,  they  built  a  bridge  five  versts  long,  and  this  piece 
of  work  cleared  out  both  the  pots. 

About  that  time  a  certain  maid  bore  a  son  and  deserted  him 
in  his  infancy.  The  child  neither  ate  nor  drank  for  three  years 
and  an  angel  of  God  always  went  about  with  him.  Well,  this 
child  came  to  the  bridge,  and  cried: 

"  Ah  !  what  a  glorious  bridge  !  God  grant  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  him  at  whose  cost  it  was  built ! " 

The  Lord  heard  this  prayer,  and  ordered  his  angels  to 
release  the  rich  moujik  from  the'  depths  of  hell  * 

With  the  bridge-building  episode  in  this  "  legend  "  may 
be  compared  the  opening  of  another  Russian  story.  In  it 
a  merchant  is  described  as  having  much  money  but  no 

•  Iz  adu  krotnyeshnago  =  from  the  last  hell.  Kromyishnaya  f  ma  =»  utter 
darkness.  Kromyeshny,  or  kromyeshiiaya,  is  sometimes  used  by  itself  to  signify 
bell. 


GHOST  STORIES.  307 

children.  So  he  and  his  wife  "  began  to  pray  to  God,  en- 
treating him  to  give  them  a  child — for  solace  in  their  youth, 
for  support  in  their  old  age,  for  soul-remembrance  *  after 
death.  And  they  took  to  feeding  the  poor  and  distributing 
alms.  Besides  all  this,  they  resolved  to  build,  for  the  use 
of  all  the  faithful,  a  long  bridge  across  swamps  and  where 
no  man  could  find  a  footing.  Much  wealth  did  the  mer- 
chant expend,  but  he  built  the  bridge,  and  when  the  work 
was  completed  he  sent  his  manager  Fedor,  saying — 

"  '  Go  and  sit  under  the  bridge,  and  listen  to  what  folks 
say  about  me — whether  they  bless  me  or  revile  me.' 

"  Fedor  set  off,  sat  under  the  bridge,  and  listened. 
Presently  three  Holy  Elders  went  over  the  bridge,  and 
said  one  to  another — 

"  '  How  ought  the  man  who  built  this  bridge  to  be  re- 
warded ? '  '  Let  there  be  born  to  him  a  fortunate  son. 
Whatsoever  that  son  says — it  shall  be  done :  whatsoever 
he  desires — that  will  the  Lord  bestow  ! '  "  t 

The  rest  of  the  story  closely  resembles  the  German 
tale  of  "  The  Pink."  %  In  the  corresponding  Bohemian 
story  of  "  The  Treacherous  Servant,"  §  it  may  be  observed, 
the  bridge-building  incident  has  been  preserved. 

But  I  will  not  dwell  any  longer  on  the  story  of  the  Fid- 
dler, as  I  propose  to  give  some  account  in  the  next  chapter 
of  several  other  tales  of  the  same  class,  in  most  of  which 
such  descriptions  of  evil  spirits  are  introduced  as  have 
manifestly  been  altered  into  what  their  narrators  consid- 
ered to  be  in  accordance  with  Christian  teaching.  And 
so  I  will  revert  to  those  ideas  about  the  dead,  and  about 

*  Hafiomin  dushi.     Pomin  =  "remembrance,"  also  "prayers  for  the  dead." 
t  Afanasief,  vii.  No.  20.     In  some  variants  of  this  story,  instead  of  the  three 
Ъо1у  elders  appear  the  Saviour,  St.  Nicholas,  and  St.  Mitrofan. 
t  "Die  Nelke,"  Grimm,  KM.,  No.  76,  and  vol.  iii.  pp.  125-6. 
§  Wenzig,  No.  17,  pp.  82-6. 


6  08  Л  US  SI  А  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

their  abiding-place,  which  the  modern  Slavonians  seem  to 
have  inherited  from  their  heathen  ancestors,  and  I  will  at- 
tempt to  illustrate  them  by  a  few  Russian  ghost-stories. 
Those  stories  are,  as  a  general  rule,  of  a  most  ghastly  na- 
ture, but  there  are  a  few  into  the  composition  of  which  the 
savage  element  does  not  enter.  The  "  Dead  Mother,5' 
which  has  already  been  quoted,  *  belongs  to  the  latter 
class  ;  and  so  does  the  following  tale — which,  as  it  bears 
no  title  in  the  original,  we  may  name. 

The   Ride  on   the  Gravestone.-)- 
Late  one  evening  a  certain  artisan  happened  to  be  returning 
home  from  a  jovial  feast  in  a  distant  village.     There  met  him 
on  the  way  an  old  friend,  one  who  had   been  dead   some   ten 
years. 

"  Good  health  to  you  !  "  said  the  dead  man. 

"  I  wish  you  good  health  !  "  replied  the  reveller,  and  straight- 
way  forgot  that  his  acquaintance  had  ever  so  long  ago  bidden 
the  world  farewell. 

"  Let's  go  to  my  house.  We'll  quaff  a  cup  or  two  once 
more." 

"  Come  along.  On  such  a  happy  occasion  as  this  meeting 
of  ours,  we  may  as  well  have  a  drink." 

They  arrived  at  a  dwelling  and  there  they  drank  and  revelled. 

"  Now  then,  good-bye  !  It's  time  for  me  to  go  home,"  said 
the  artisan. 

"  Stay  a  bit.  Where  do  you  want  to  go  now  ?  Spend  the  night 
here  with  me." 

"No,  brother!  don't  ask  me  ;  it  cannot  be.  I've  business 
to  do  to-morrow,  so  I  must  get  home  as  early  as  possible." 

"  Well,  good-bye  !  but  why  should  you  walk  ?  Better  get  on 
my  horse  ;  it  will  carry  you  home  quickly." 

"  Thanks  !  let's  have  it." 

He  got  on  its  back,  and  was  carried  off — just  as  a  whirlwind 

t  See  Chap.  I.  p.  32.  t  Afanasief,  v.  p.  144. 


GHOST  STORIES.  309 

flies  !  All  of  a  sudden  a  cock  crew.  It  was  awful !  All  around 
were  graves,  and  the  rider  found  he  had  a  gravestone  under 
him ! 

Of  a  somewhat  similar  nature  is  the  story  of — 
The  Two  Friends* 
In  the  days  of  old  there  lived  in  a  certain  village  two  young 
men.  They  were  great  friends,  went  to  besyedas  f  together,  in 
fact,  regarded  each  other  as  brothers.  And  they  made  this 
mutual  agreement.  Whichever  of  the  two  should  marry  first 
was  to  invite  his  comrade  to  his  wedding.  And  it  was  not  to 
make  any  difference  whether  he  was  alive  or  dead. 

About  a  year  after  this  one  of  the  young  men  fell  ill  and 
died.  A  few  months  later  his  comrade  took  it  into  his  head  to 
get  married.  So  he  collected  all  his  kinsmen,  and  set  off  to 
fetch  his  bride.  Now  it  happened  that  they  drove  past  the 
graveyard,  and  the  bridegroom  recalled  his  friend  to  mind,  and 
remembered  his  old  agreement.  So  he  had  the  horses  stopped, 
saying : 

"  I'm  going  to  my  comrade's  grave.  I  shall  ask  him  to  come 
and  enjoy  himself  at  my  wedding.  A  right  trusty  friend  was 
he  to  me." 

So  he  went  to  the  grave  and  began  to  call  aloud  : 

"  Comrade  dear !  I  invite  thee  to  my  wedding." 

Suddenly  the  grave  yawned,  the  dead  man  arose,  and  said  : 

"  Thanks  be  to  thee,  brother,  that  thou  hast  fulfilled  thy 
promise.  And  now,  that  we  may  profit  by  this  happy  chance, 
enter  my  abode.     Let  us  quaff  a  glass  apiece  of  grateful  drink." 

"  I'd  have  gone,  only  the  marriage  procession  is  stopping 
outside  ;  all  the  folks  are  waiting  for  me." 

"  Eh,  brother  !  "  replied  the  dead  man,  "  surely  it  won't  take 
long  to  toss  off  a  glass  !  " 

The  bridegroom  jumped  into  the  grave.  The  dead  man 
poured  him  out  a  cup  of  liquor.  He  drank  it  off— and  a  hundred 
years  passed  away. 

*  Afanasief,  vi.  p.  322,  323.  t    Evening  gatherings  of  young  people. 


S10  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  Quaff  another  cup,  dear  friend  !  "  said  the  dead  man. 

He  drank  a  second  cup — two  hundred  years  passed  away. 

"  Now,  comrade  dear,  quaff  a  third  cup !  "  said  the  dead 
man,  "  and  then  go,  in  God's  name,  and  celebrate  thy  mar- 
riage !  " 

He  drank  the  third  cup— three  hundred  years  passed  away. 

The  dead  man  took  leave  of  his  comrade.  The  coffin  lid  fell ; 
the  grave  closed. 

The  bridegroom  looked  around.  Where  the  graveyard  had 
been,  was  now  a  piece  of  waste  ground.  No  road  was  to  be 
seen,  no  kinsmen,  no  horses.  All  around  grew  nettles  and  tall 
grass. 

He  ran  to  the  village — but  the  village  was  not  what  it .  used 
to  be.  The  houses  were  different ;  the  people  were  all  strangers 
to  him.  He  went  to  the  priest's — but  the  priest  was  not  the  one 
who  used  to  be  there — and  told  him  about  everything  that  had 
happened.  The  priest  searched  through  the  church-books,  and 
found  that,  three  hundred  years  before,  this  occurrence  had 
taken  place :  a  bridegroom  had  gone  to  the  graveyard  on  his 
wedding-day,  and  had  disappeared.  And  his  bride,  after  some 
time  had  passed  by,  had  married  another  man. 


[The  "  Rip  van  Winkle  "  story  is  too  well  known  to  require  more  than  a  passing 
allusion.  It  was  doubtless  founded  on  one  of  the  numerous  folk-tales  which  corre- 
spond to  the  Christian  legend  of  "  The  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus" — itself  an  echo  of 
an  older  tale  (see  Baring  Gould,  "Curious  Myths,"  1872,  pp.  93-112,  and  Cox, 
"Mythology  of  the  Aryan  Nations,"  i.  413) — and  to  that  of  the  monk  who  listens  to 
a  bird  singing  in  the  convent  garden,  and  remains  entranced  for  the  space  of  many 
years  :  of  which  latter  legend  a  Russian  version  occurs  in  Chudinsky's  collection 
(No.  17,  pp.  92-4).  Very  close  indeed  is  the  resemblance  between  the  Russian  story 
of  "  The  Two  Friends,"  and  the  Norse  "  Friends  in  Life  and  Death"  (Asbjomsen's 
New  Series,  No.  62,  pp.  5-7).  In  the  latter  the  bridegroom  knocks  hard  and  long  on 
nis  dead  friend's  grave.  At  length  its  occupant  appears,  and  accounts  for  his  delay 
Dy  saying  he  had  been  far  away  when  the  first  knocks  came,  and  so  had  not  heard 
them.  Then  he  follows  the  bridegroom  to  church  and  from  church,  and  afterwards 
the  bridegroom  sees  him  back  to  his  tomb.  On  the  way  the  living  man  expresses  a 
desire  to  see  something  of  the  world  beyond  the  grave,  and  the  corpse  fulfils  his  wish, 
naving  first  placed  on  his  head  a  sod  cut  in  the  graveyard.  After  witnessing  many 
etrange  sights,  the  bridegroom  is  told  to  sit  down  and  wait  till  his  guide  returns. 
When  he  rises  to  his  feet,  he  is  all  overgrown  with  mosses  and  shrubs  (var  han   over- 


GHOST  STORIES.  311 

»oxen  med  Mose  og  Busker),  and  when  he  reaches  the  outer  world  he  finds  all  thing? 
changed.] 

But  from  these  dim  sketches  of  a  life  beyond,  or  rathei 
within  the  grave,  in  which  memories  of  old  days  and  old 
friendships  are  preserved  by  ghosts  of  an  almost  genial 
and  entirely  harmless  disposition,  we  will  now  turn  to  those 
more  elaborate  pictures  in  which  the  dead  are  represented 
under  an  altogether  terrific  aspect.  It  is  not  as  an  incor- 
poreal being  that  the  visitor  from  the  other  world  is  repre- 
sented in  the  Skazkas.  He  comes  not  as  a  mere  phantom, 
intangible,  impalpable,  incapable  of  physical  exertion, 
haunting  the  dwelling  which  once  was  his  home,  or  the 
spot  to  which  he  is  drawn  by  the  memory  of  some  unex- 
p;ated  crime.  It  is  as  a  vitalized  corpse  that  he  comes  to 
trouble  mankind,  often  subject  to  human  appetites,  con- 
stantly endowed  with  more  than  human  strength  and  malig- 
nity. His  apparel  is  generally  that  of  the  grave,  and  he 
cannot  endure  to  part  with  it,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  fol- 
lowing story — 

The  Shroud.* 

In  a  certain  village  there  was  a  girl  who  was  lazy  and  slothful, 
hated  working  but  would  gossip  and  chatter  away  like  anything. 
Well,  she  took  it  into  her  head  to  invite  the  other  girls  to  a  spin- 
ning party.  For  in  the  villages,  as  every  one  knows,  it  is  the 
lazybones  who  gives  the  spinning-feast,  and  the  sweet-toothed 
are  those  who  go  to  it. 

Well,  on  the  appointed  night  she  got  her  spinners  together. 
They  span  for  her,  and  she  fed  them  and  feasted  diem.  Among 
other  things  they  chatted  about  was  this — which  of  them  all  was 
the  boldest  ? 

Says  the  lazybones  (Jezhakd)  : 

"I'm  not  afraid  of  anything  !  " 

•  Afarusief,  v-  No-  30  a,  pp.  140-1.     From  the  Voroneje  Governmeut. 


il'-i  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

"  Well  then,"  say  the  spinners,  "  if  you're  not  afraid,  go 
past  the  graveyard  to  the  church,  take  down  the  holy  picture 
from  the  door,  and  bring  it  here." 

"Good,  I'll  bring  it ;  only  each  of  you  must  spin  me  a  dis- 
taff ul." 

That  was  just  her  sort  of  notion  :  to  do  nothing  herself,  but 
to  get  others  to  do  it  for  her.  Well,  she  went,  took  down  the 
picture,  and  brought  it  home  with  her.  Her  friends  all  saw  that 
sure  enough  it  was  the  picture  from  the  church.  But  the  picture 
had  to  be  taken  back  again,  and  it  was  now  the  midnight  hour. 
Who  was  to  take  it  ?     At  length  the  lazybones  said  : 

"  You  girls  go  on  spinning.  I'll  take  it  back  myself.  I'm 
not  afraid  of  anything  !  " 

So  she  went  and  put  the  picture  back  in  its  place.  As  she 
was  passing  the  graveyard  on  her  return,  she  saw  a  corpse  in  a 
white  shroud,  seated  on  a  tomb.  It  was  a  moonlight  night ; 
everything  was  visible.  She  went  up  to  the  corpse,  and  drew 
away  its  shroud  from  it.  The  corpse  held  its  peace,  not  utter- 
ing a  word  ;  no  doubt  the  time  for  it  to  speak  had  not  come  yet. 
Well,  she  took  the  shroud  and  went  home. 

"  There  !  "  says  she,  "  I've  taken  back  the  picture  and  put 
it  in  its  place  ;  and,  what's  more,  here's  a  shroud  I  took  away 
from  a  corpse." 

Some  of  the  girls  were  horrified ;  others  didn't  believe  what 
she  said,  and  laughed  at  her. 

But  after  they  had  supped  and  lain  down  to  sleep,  all  of  a 
sudden  the  corpse  tapped  at  the  window  and  said  : 

"  Give  me  my  shroud  !     Give  me  my  shroud !  " 

The  girls  were  so  frightened  they  didn't  know  whether  they 
were  alive  or  dead.  But  the  lazybones  took  the  shroud,  went  to 
the  window,  opened  t,  and  said  : 

"  There,  take  it." 

"  No,"  replied  the  corpse,  "  restore  it  to  the  place  you  took 
it  from." 

Just  then  the  cocks  suddenly  began  to  crow.  The  corpse 
disappeared. 


GHOST  STORIES.  813 

'  Next  night,  when  the  spinners  had  all  gone  home  to  their 
own  houses,  at  the  very  same  hour  as  before,  the  corpse  came, 
tapped  at  the  window,  and  cried  : 

"  Give  me  my  shroud  !  " 

Well,  the  girl's  father  and  mother  opened  the  window  and 
offered  him  his  shroud. 

"  No,"  says  he,  "  let  her  take  it  back  to  the  place  she  took 
it  from." 

"  Really  now,  how  could  one  go  to  a  graveyard  with  a  corpse  ? 
What  a  horrible  idea  !  "  she  replied. 

Just  then  the  cocks  crew.     The  corpse  disappeared. 

Next  day  the  girl's  father  and  mother  sent  for  the  priest, 
told  him  the  whole  story,  and  entreated  him  to  help  them  in  their 
trouble. 

"  Couldn't  a  service  *  be  performed  ? "  they  said. 

The  priest  reflected  awhile ;  then  he  replied  : 

"  Please  to  tell  her  to  come  to  church  to-morrow." 

Next  day  the  lazybones  went  to  church.  The  service  began, 
numbers  of  people  came  to  it.  But  just  as  they  were  going 
to  sing  the  cherubim  song,f  there  suddenly  arose,  goodness 
knows  whence,  so  terrible  a  whirlwind  that  all  the  congregation 
fell  flat  on  their  faces.  And  it  caught  up  that  girl,  and  then  flung 
her  down  on  the  ground.  The  girl  disappeared  from  sight; 
nothing  was  left  of  her  but  her  back  hair.J 

They  are  generally  the  corpses  of  wizards,  or  of  other 
sinners  who  have  led  specially  unholy  lives,  which  leave 
their  graves  by  night  and  wander  abroad.  Into  such  bodies, 
it  is  held,  demons  enter,  and  the  combination  of  fiend  and 
corpse  goes  forth  as  the  terrible  Vampire  thirsting  for 
blood.     Of  the  proceedings  of  such  a  being  the  next  story 

*  Obyednya,  the  service  answering  to  the  Latin  mass. 

t  At  the  end  of  the  obyednya. 

X  The  kosa  or  single  braid  in  which  Russian  girls  wear  their  hair.  See  "  Songs 
of  the  Russian  People,"  pp.  272-5.  On  a  story  of  this  kind  Geothe  founded  his  weird 
ballad  of  "  Der  Todtentanz."   Cf.  Bertram's  "  Sagen,"  No.  18. 


314  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

gives  a  detailed  account,  from  which,  among  other  things, 
may  be  learnt  the  fact  that  Slavonic  corpses  attach  great 
importance  to  their  coffin-lids  as  well  as  to  their  shrouds. 

The  Coffin-Lid.  * 

A  MOUjiKwas  driving  along  one  night  with  a  load  of  pots.  His 
horse  grew  tired,  and  all  of  a  sudden  it  came  to  a  stand-still 
alongside  of  a  graveyard.  The  moujik  unharnessed  his  horse 
and  set  it  free  to  graze  ;  meanwhile  he  laid  himself  down  on 
one  of  the  graves.     But  somehow  he  didn't  go  to  sleep. 

He  remained  lying  there  some  time.  Suddenly  the  grave 
began  to  open  beneath  him  :  he  felt  the  movement  and  sprang 
to  his  feet.  The  grave  opened,  and  out  of  it  came  a  corpse — 
wrapped  in  a  white  shroud,  and  holding  a  coffin  lid — came  out 
and  ran  to  the  church,Jaid  the  coffin-lid  at  the  door,  and  then 
set  off  for  the  village. 

The  moujik  was  a  daring  fellow.  He  picked  up  the  coffin-lid 
and  remained  standing  beside  his  cart,  waiting  to  see  what  would 
happen.  After  a  short  delay  the  dead  man  came  back,  and  was 
going  to  snatch  up  his  coffin-lid — but  it  was  not  to  be  seen. 
Then  the  corpse  began  to  track  it  out,  traced  it  up  to  the  moujik, 
and  said  : 

"  Give  me  my  lid  :  if  you  don't,  I'll  tear  you  to  bits  ! " 

"And  my  hatchet,  how  about  that  ?"  answers  the  moujik. 
Why,  it's  I  who'll  be  chopping  you  into  small  pieces  !  " 

"  Do  give  it  back  to  me,  good  man  !  "  begs  the  corpse. 

"  I'll  give  it  when  you  tell  me  where  you've  been  and  what 
you've  done." 

"  Well,  I've  been  in  the  village,  and  there  I've  killed  a  couple 
of  youngsters." 

"  Well  then,  now  tell  me  how  they  can  be  brought  back  to 
life." 

The  corpse  reluctantly  made  answer  : 

"  Cut  off  the  left  skirt  of  my  shroud,  and  take  it  with  you 

•  Afanasief,  v.  pp.  142-4.    From  the  Tambof  Government. 


GHOST  STORIES.  315 

When  you  come  into  the  house  where  the  youngsters  were  kill- 
ed, pour  some  live  coals  into  a  pot  and  put  the  piece  of  the 
shroud  in  with  them,  and  then  lock  the  door.  The  lads  will  be 
revived  by  the  smoke  immediately." 

The  moujik  cut  off  the  left  skirt  of  the  shroud,  and  gave  up 
the  coffin-lid.  The  corpse  went  to  its  grave — the  grave  opened. 
But  just  as  the  dead  man  was  descending  into  it,  all  of  a  sudden 
the  cocks  began  to  crow,  and  he  hadn't  time  to  get  properly 
covered  over.  One  end  of  the  coffin-lid  remained  sticking  out 
of  the  ground. 

The  moujik  saw  all  this  and  made  a  note  of  it.  The  day 
began  to  dawn  ;  he  harnessed  his  horse  and  drove  into  the  vil- 
lage. In  one  of  the  houses  he  heard  cries  and  wailing.  In  he 
vent — -there  lay  two  dead  lads. 

"  Don't  cry,"  says  he,  "  I  can  bring  them  to  life  !  " 

"  Do  bring  them  to  life,  kinsman,"  say  their  relatives. 
"  We'll  give  you  half  of  all  we  possess." 

The  moujik  did  everything  as  the  corpse  had  instructed  him, 
and  the  lads  came  back  to  life.  Their  relatives  were  delighted, 
but  they  immediately  seized  the  moujik  and  bound  him  with 
cords,  saying : 

"No,  no,  trickster!  We'll  hand  you  over  to  the  authorities. 
Since  you  knew  how  to  bring  them  back  to  life,  maybe  it  was 
you  who  killed  them  !  " 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about,  true  believers  !  Have  the 
fear  of  God  before  your  eyes  !  "  cried  the  moujik. 

Then  he  told  them  everything  that  had  happened  to  him 
during  the  night.  Well,  they  spread  the  news  through  the 
village;  the  whole  population  assembled  and  swarmed  into  the 
graveyard.  They  found  out  the  grave  from  which  the  dead  man 
had  come  out,  they  tore  it  open,  and  they  drove  an  aspen  stake 
right  into  the  heart  of  the  corpse,  so  that  it  might  no  more  rise 
up  and  slay.  But  they  rewarded  the  moujik  richly,  and  sent  him 
away  home  with  great  honor. 

It  is   not  only  during  sleep  that  the  Vampire  is  to  be 


316  7? USSIAN  FOLK-  TALES. 

dreaded.  At  cross-roads,  or  in  the  neighborhood  of 
cemeteries,  an  animated  corpse  of  this  description  often 
lurks,  watching  for  some  unwary  wayfarer  whom  it  may  be 
able  to  slay  and  eat.  Past  such  dangerous  spots  as  these 
the  belated  villager  will  speed  with  timorous  steps,  remem- 
bering, perhaps,  some  such  uncanny  tale  as  that  which 
comes  next. 

The  Two  Corpses.* 

A  Soldier  had  obtained  leave  to  go  home  on  furlough — to  pray 
to  the  holy  images,  and  to  bow  down  before  his  parents.  And 
as  he  was  going  his  way,  at  a  time  when  the  sun  had  long  set, 
and  all  was  dark  around,  it  chanced  that  he  had  to  pass  by  a 
graveyard.  Just  then  he  heard  that  some  one  was  running  after 
him,  and  crying : 

"  Stop !  you  can't  escape !  " 

He  looked  back  and  there  was  a  corpse  running  and  gnash- 
ing its  teeth.  The  Soldier  sprang  on  one  side  with  all  his 
might  to  get  away  from  it,  caught  sight  of  a  little  chapel,  j  and 
bolted  straight  into  it. 

There  wasn't  a  soul  in  the  chapel,  but  stretched  out  on  a 
table  there  lay  another  corpse,  with  tapers  burning  in  front  of 
it.  The  Soldier  hid  himself  in  a  corner,  and  remained  there, 
hardly  knowing  whether  he  was  alive  or  dead,  but  waiting  to  see 
what  would  happen.  Presently  up  ran  the  first  corpse — the  one 
that  had  chased  theSoldier — and  dashed  into  the  chapel.  There- 
upon the  one  that  was  lying  on  the  table  jumped  up,  and  cried 
to  it  : 

"  What  hast  thou  come  here  for  ?  " 

"  Pve  chased  a  soldier  in  here,  so  I'm  going  to  eat  him." 

"  Come  now,  brother  !  he's  run  into  my  house.  I  shall  eat 
him  myself." 

"  No,  I  shall !  " 

"  No,  I  shall !  " 

•  Afanasief,  vi.  pp.  324,  325.        t  Chusovenka,  a  small  chapel,  shrine,  or  oratory. 


GHOST  STORIES.  317 

And  they  set  to  work  fighting  ;  the  dust  flew  like  anything. 
They'd  have  gone  on  fighting  ever  so  much  longer,  only  the 
cocks  began  to  crow.  Then  both  the  corpses  fell  lifeless  to 
the  ground,  and  the  Soldier  went  on  his  way  homeward  in  peace, 
saying : 

"  Glory  be  to  Thee,  О  Lord  !  I  am  saved  from  the  wizards  !  " 

Even  the  possession  of  arms  and  the  presence  of  a 
dog  will  not  always,  it  seems,  render  a  man  secure  from 
this  terrible  species  of  cut-throat. 

The  Dog  and  the  Corpse.* 
A  moujik  went  out  in  pursuit  of  game  one  day,  and  took  a 
favorite  dog  with  him.  He  walked  and  walked  through  woods 
and  bogs,  but  got  nothing  for  his  pains.  At  last  the  darkness  of 
night  surprised  him.  At  an  uncanny  hour  he  passed  by  a  grave- 
yard, and  there,  at  a  place  where  two  roads  met,  he  saw  standing 
a  corpse  in  a  white  shroud.  The  moujik  was  horrified,  and  knew 
not  which  way  to  go — whether  to  keep  on  or  to  turn  back. 

"Well,  whatever  happens,  I'll  go  on,"  he  thought ;  and  on  he 
went,  his  dog  running  at  his  heels.  When  the  corpse  perceived 
bim,  it  came  to  meet  him ;  not  touching  the  earth  with  its  feet, 
but  keeping  about  a  foot  above  it — the  shroud  fluttering  after  it. 
When  it  had  come  up  with  the  sportsman,  it  made  a  rush  at  him ; 
but  the  dog  seized  hold  of  it  by  its  bare  calves,  and  began  a  tussle 
with  it.  When  the  moujik  saw  his  dog  and  the  corpse  grappling 
with  each  other,  he  was  delighted  that  things  had  turned  out  so 
well  for  himself,  and  he  set  off  running  home  with  all  his  might. 
The  dog  kept  up  the  struggle  until  cock-crow,  when  the  corpse 
fell  motionless  to  the  ground.  Then  the  dog  ran  off  in  pursuit  of 
its  master,  caught  him  up  just  as  he  reached  home,  and  rushed  at 
him,  furiously  trying  to  bite  and  to  rend  him.  So  savage  was  it, 
and  so  persistent,  that  it  was  as  much  as  the  people  of  the  house 
could  do  to  beat  it  off. 

"  Whatever  has  come  over  the  dog  ? "  asked  the  moujik's 
old  mother.     "  Why  should  it  hate  its  master  so  ?  " 

*  Afanasief,  vi.  pp  321,  322. 


318  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

The  moujik  told  her  all  that  had  happened. 

"  A  bad  piece  of  work,  my  son  ! "  said  the  old  woman.  "  The 
dog  was  disgusted  at  your  not  helping  it.  There  it  was  fighting 
with  the  corpse — and  you  deserted  it,  and  thought  only  of  saving 
yourself  !     Now  it  will  owe  you  a  grudge  for  ever  so  long." 

Next  morning,  while  the  family  were  going  about  the  farm- 
yard, the  dog  was  perfectly  quiet.  But  the  moment  its  master 
made  his  appearance,  it  began  to  growl  like  anything. 

They  fastened  it  to  a  chain ;  for  a  whole  year  they  kept  it 
chained  up.  But  in  spite  of  that,  it  never  forgot  how  its  master 
had  offended  it.  One  day  it  got  loose,  flew  straight  at  him,  and 
began  trying  to  throttle  him. 

So  they  had  to  kill  it. 

In  the  next  story  a  most  detailed  account  is  given  of 
the  manner  in  which  a  Vampire  sets  to  work,  and  also  of 
the  best  means  of  ridding  the  world  of  it. 

The  Soldier  and  the  Vampire.* 

A  certain  soldier  was  allowed  to  go  home  on  furlough. 
Well,  he  walked  and  walked,  and  after  a  time  he  began  to  draw 
near  to  his  native  village.  Not  far  off  from  that  village  lived  a 
miller  in  his  mill.  In  old  times  the  Soldier  had  been  very 
intimate  with  him  :  why  shouldn't  he  go  and  see  his  friend  ?  He 
went.  The  Miller  received  him  cordially,  and  at  once  brought 
out  liquor  ;  and  the  two  began  drinking,  and  chattering  about 
their  ways  and  doings.  All  this  took  place  towards  nighfall,  and 
the  Soldier  stopped  so  long  at  the  Miller's  that  it  grew  quite 
dark. 

When  he  proposed  to  start  for  his  village,  his  host  exclaimed : 

"  Spend  the  night  here,  trooper  !  It's  very  late  now,  and  per- 
haps you  might  run  into  mischief.' 

"  How  so  ?  " 

"  God  is  punishing  us  !     A  terrible  warlock  has  died  among 

•  Afanasief,  v.  pp.  144-7.     From  the  Tambof  Government. 


GHOST  STORIES.  319 

us,  and  by  night  he  rises  from  his  grave,  wanders  through  the 
village,  and  does  such  things  as  bring  fear  upon  the  very  boldest ! 
How  could  even  you  help  being  afraid  of  him  ? " 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it !  A  soldier  is  a  man  who  belongs  to  the 
crown,  and  "  crown  property  cannot  be  drowned  in  water  nor 
burnt  in  fire."  I'll  be  off:  I'm  tremendously  anxious  to  see  my 
people  as  soon  as  possible." 

Off  he  set.  His  road  lay  in  front  of  a  graveyard.  On  one 
of  the  graves  he  saw  a  great  fire  blazing.  "  What's  that  ?  " 
thinks  he.  "  Let's  have  a  look."  When  he  drew  near,  he  saw 
that  the  Warlock  was  sitting  by  the  fire,  sewing  boots. 

"  Hail,  brother !  "  calls  out  the  Soldier. 

The  Warlock  looked  up  and  said  : 

"  What  have  you  come  here  for  ?  " 

"Why,  I  wanted  to  see  what  you're  doing." 

The  Warlock  threw  his  work  aside  and  invited  the  Soldier  to 
a  wedding. 

"Come  along,  brother,"  says  he,  "let's  enjoy  ourselves. 
There's  a  wedding  going  on  in  the  village." 

"  Come  along  !  "  says  the  Soldier. 

They  came  to  where  the  wedding  was ;  there  they  were 
given  drink,  and  treated  with  the  utmost  hospitality.  The  War- 
lock drank  and  drank,  revelled  and  revelled,  and  then  grew 
angry.  He  chased  all  the  guests  and  relatives  out  of  the  house, 
threw  the  wedded  pair  into  a  slumber,  took  out  two  phials  and 
an  awl,  pierced  the  hands  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom  with  the 
awl,  and  began  drawing  off  their  blood.  Having  done  this,  he 
said  to  the  Soldier: 

"Now  let's  be  off." 

Well,  they  went  off.     On  the  way  the  Soldier  said  : 

"  Tell  me  ;  why  did  you  draw  off  their  blood  in  those  phials  ; 

"  Why,  in  order  that  the  bride  and  bridegroom  might  die. 
To-morrow  morning  no  one  will  be  able  to  wake  them.  I  alone 
know  how  to  bring  them  back  to  life." 

"  How's  that  managed  ?  " 

"  The  bride  and  bridegroom  must  have  cuts  made  in  their 


320  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

heels,  and  some  of  their  own  blood  must  then  be  poured  back 
into  those  wounds.  I've  got  the  bridegroom's  blood  stowed 
away  in  my  right-hand  pocket,  and  the  bride's  in  my  left." 

The  Soldier  listened  to  this  without  letting  a  single  word 
escape  him.     Then  the  Warlock  began  boasting  again. 

"  Whatever  I  wish,"  says  he,  "that  I  can  do  !  " 

"  I  suppose  it's  quite  impossible  to  get  the  better  of  you  ?  " 
says  the  Soldier. 

"  Why  impossible  ?  If  any  one  were  to  make  a  pyre  of  aspen 
boughs,  a  hundred  loads  of  them,  and  were  to  burn  me  on  that 
pyre,  then  he'd  be  able  to  get  the  better  of  me.  Only  he'd 
have  to  look  out  sharp  in  burning  me  ;  for  snakes  and  worms 
and  different  kinds  of  reptiles  would  creep  out  of  my  inside,  and 
crows  and  magpies  and  jackdaws  would  come  flying  up.  All 
these  must  be  caught  and  flung  on  the  pyre.  If  so  much  as  a 
single  maggot  were  to  escape,  then  there'd  be  no  help  for  it ;  in 
that  maggot  I  should  slip  away  !  " 

The  Soldier  listened  to  all  this  and  did  not  forget  it.  He  and 
the  Warlock  talked  and  talked,  and  at  last  they  arrived  at  the 
grave. 

"Well,  brother,"  said  the  Warlock,  "now  I'll  tear  you  to 
pieces.     Otherwise  you'd  be  telling  all  this." 

"  What  are  you  talking  about  ?  Don't  you  deceive  yourself ; 
I  serve  God  and  the  Emperor." 

The  Warlock  gnashed  his  teeth,  howled  aloud,  and  sprang 
at  the  Soldier — who  drew  his  sword  and  began  laying  about  him 
with  sweeping  blows.  They  struggled  and  struggled  ;  the  Sol- 
dier was  all  but  at  the  end  of  his  strength.  "  Ah  !  "  thinks  he, 
«  I'm  a  lost  man — and  all  for  nothing!"  Suddenly  the  cocks 
began  to  crow.     The  Warlock  fell  lifeless  to  the  ground. 

The  Soldier  took  the  phials  of  blood  out  of  the  Warlock's 
pockets,  and  went  on  to  the  house  of  his  own  people.  When  i:e 
nad  got  there,  and  had  exchanged  greetings  with  his  relatives, 
they  said  : 

"  Did  you  see  any  disturbance,  Soldier  ?" 

"  No,  I  saw  none." 


GHOST  STORIES.  321 

*'  There  now !  Why  we've  a  terrible  piece  of  work  going 
on  in  the  village.     A  Warlock  has  taken  to  haunting  it !  " 

After  talking  awhile,  they  lay  down  to  sleep.  Next  mcrning 
the  Soldier  awoke,  and  began  asking  : 

"  I'm  told  you've  got  a  wedding  going  on  somewhere  here  ?  " 

"  There  was  a  wedding  in  the  house  of  a  rich  moujik," 
replied  his  relatives,  "  but  the  bride  and  bridegroom  have  died 
this  very  night — what  from,  nobody  knows." 

"  Where  does  this  moujik  live  ? " 

They  showed  him  the  house.  Thither  he  went  without 
speaking  a  word.  When  he  got  there,  he  found  the  whole 
tamily  in  tears. 

•'  What  are  you  mourning  about  ?  "  says  he. 

"  Such  and  such  is  the  state  of  things,  Soldier,"  say  they. 

■'  I  can  bring  your  young  people  to  life  again.  What  wiL 
you  give  me  if  I  do  ?  " 

"  Take  what  you  like,  even  were  it  half  of  what  we've  got ! 

The  Soldier  did  as  the  Warlock  had  instructed  him,  and 
brought  the  young  people  back  to  life.  Instead  of  weeping 
there  began  to  be  happiness  and  rejoicing;  the  Soldier  was 
hospitably  treated  and  well  rewarded.  Then — left  about,  face  ! 
off  he  marched  to  the  Stamsta,  and  told  him  to  call  the  peasants 
together  and  to  get  ready  a  hundred  loads  of  aspen  wood. 
Well,  they  took  the  wood  into  the  graveyard,  dragged  the  War- 
lock out  of  his  grave,  placed  him  on  the  pyre,  and  set  it  alight 
— the  people  all  standing  round  in  a  circle  with  brooms,  shovels, 
and  fire-irons.  The  pyre  became  wrapped  flames,  the  Warlock 
began  to  burn.  His  corpse  burst,  and  out  of  it  crept  snakes, 
worms,  and  all  sorts  of  reptiles,  and  up  came  flying  crows,  mag- 
pies, and  jackdaws.  The  peasants  knocked  them  down  and 
flung  them  into  the  fire,  not  allowing  so  much  as  a  single  mag- 
got to  creep  away !  And  so  the  Warlock  was  thoroughly  con- 
sumed, and  the  Soldier  collected  his  ashes  and  strewed  the.ti 
to  the  winds.  From  that  time  forth  there  was  peace  in  the 
village. 

The  Soldier  received  the  thanks  of  the   whole  community. 

21 


322  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

He  stayed  at  home  some  time,  enjoying  himself  thoroughly 
Then  he  went  back  to  the  Tsar's  service  with  money  in  his 
pocket.  When  he  had  served  his  time,  he  retired  from  the 
army,  and  began  to  live  at  his  ease. 

The  stories  of  this  class  are  very  numerous,  all  of  them 
based  on  the  same  belief — that  in  certain  cases  the  dead, 
in  a  material  shape,  leave  their  graves  in  order  to  destroy  and 
prey  upon  the  living.  This  belief  is  not  peculiar  to  the  Slavo- 
nians but  it  is  one  of  the  characteristic  features  of  their  spir- 
itual creed.  Among  races  which  burn  their  dead,  remarks 
Hertz  in  his  exhaustive  treatise  on  the  Werwolf  (p.  126),  lit- 
tle is  known  of  regular  "  corpse-spectres."  Only  vague  ap- 
paritions, dream-like  phantoms,  are  supposed,  as  a  general 
rule,  to  issue  from  graves  in  which  nothing  more  substantial 
than  ashes  has  been  laid.*  But  where  it  is  customary  to 
lay  the  dead  body  in  the  ground,  "  a  peculiar  half-life  "  be- 
comes attributed  to  it  by  popular  fancy,  and  by  some  races 
it  is  supposed  to  be  actuated  at  intervals  by  murderous  im- 
pulses. In  the  East  these  are  generally  attributed  to  the 
fact  of  its  being  possessed  by  an  evil  spirit,  but  in  some 
parts  of  Europe  no  such  explanation  of  its  conduct  is  given, 
though  it  may  often  be  implied.  "The  belief  in  vampires 
is  the  specific  Slavonian  form  of  the  universal  belief  in 
spectres  (Gespenster)"  says  Hertz,  and  certainly  vampir- 
ism has  always  made  those  lands  peculiarly  its  own  which 
are  or  have  been  tenanted  or  greatly  influenced  by  Slavonians. 

But  animated  corpses  often    play  an  important  part  in 

*  On  this  account  Hanush  believes  that  the  Old  Slavonians,  as  burners  of  theil 
dead,  must  have  borrowed  the  vampire  belief  from  some  other  race.  See  ihe 
"Zeitschrift  fiir  deutsche  Mythologie,"  &c,  vol.  iv.  p.  199.  But  it  is  not  certain  that 
burial  by  cremation  was  universally  practised  by  the  heathen  Slavonians.  Kotlyarev- 
sky,  in  his  excellent  work  on  their  funeral  customs,  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that 
there  never  was  any  general  rule  on  the  subject,  but  that  some  Slavonians  buried 
without  burning,  while  others  first  burned  their  dead,  and  then  inhumed  their  ashes. 
See  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  p.  325. 


GHOST  STORIES.  323 

the  traditions  of  other  countries.  Among  the  Scandinavians, 
and  especially  in  Iceland,  were  they  the  cause  of  many  fears, 
though  they  were  not  supposed  to  be  impelled  by  a  thirst 
for  blood  so  much  as  by  other  carnal  appetites,*  or  by  a 
kind  of  local  malignity.f  In  Germany  tales  of  horror 
similar  to  the  Icelandic  are  by  no  means  unknown,  but  the 
majority  of  them  are  to  be  found  in  districts  which  were 
once  wholly  Lettic  or  Slavonic,  though  they  are  now 
reckoned  as  Teutonic,  such  as  East  Prussia,  or  Pomerania, 
or  Lusatia.  But  it  is  among  the  races  which  are  Slavonic 
by  tongue  as  well  as  by  descent,  that  the  genuine  vampire 
tales  flourish  most  luxuriantly :  in  Russia,  in  Poland,  and 
in  Servia— among  the  Czekhs  of  Bohemia,  and  the  Slovaks 
of  Hungary,  and  the  numerous  other  subdivisions  of  the 
Slavonic  family  which  are  included  within  the  heterogeneous 
empire  of  Austria.  Among  the  Albanians  and  Modern 
Greeks  they  have  taken  firm  root,  but  on  those  peoples  a 
strong  Slavonic  influence  has  been  brought  to  bear.  Even 
Prof.  Bernhard  Schmidt,  although  an  uncompromising  op- 
ponent of  Fallmerayer's  doctrines  with  regard  to  the  Sla- 
vonic origin  of  the  present  inhabitants  of  Greece,  allows 
that  the  Greeks,  as  they  borrowed  from  the  Slavonians  a 
name  for  the  Vampire,  may  have  received  from  them  also 
certain  views  and  customs  with  respect   to    it.|      Beyond 

*  See  the  strange  stories  in  Maurer's  "  Islandische  Volkssagen,"  pp.  112,  and 
300,  301. 

t  As  in  the  case  of  Glam,  the  terrible  spectre  which  Grettir  had  so  much  difficulty 
in  overcoming.  To  all  who  appreciate  a  shudder  maybe  recommended  chap.  xxxv. 
of  "  The  Story  of  Grettir  the  Strong,"  translated  from  the  Icelandic  by  E.  Magmisson 
and  W.  Morris.     1869. 

%  The  ordinary  Modern-Greek  word  for  a  vampire,  !Зо1'рк6?мка£,  he  says,  "  is 
undoubtedly  of  Slavonic  origin,  being  identical  with  the  Slavonic  name  of  the  werwolf, 
which  is  called  in  Bohemian  vlkod!ak,  in  Bulgarian  and  Slovak,  vrkolak,  &c,"  the 
vampire  and  the  werwolf  having  many  points  in  common.  Moreover,  the  Regular 
name  for  a  vampire  in  Servian,  he  remarks,  is  vubodiak.    This  proves  the  Slavonian 


321  RUSSJAN  FOLK-TALES. 

this  he  will  not  go,  and  he  quotes  a  number  of  passages 
from  Hellenic  writers  to  prove  that  in  ancient  Greece 
spectres  were  frequently  represented  as  delighting  in  blood, 
and  sometimes  as  exercising  a  power  to  destroy.  Nor  will 
he  admit  that  any  very  great  stress  ought  to  be  laid  upon 
the  fact  that  the  Vampire  is  generally  called  in  Greece  by 
a  name  of  Slavonic  extraction  ;  for  in  the  islands,  which 
were,  he  says,  little  if  at  all  affected  by  Slavonic  influences, 
the  Vampire  bears  a  thoroughly  Hellenic  designation.* 
But  the  thirst  for  blood  attributed  by  Homer  to  his  shadowy 
ghosts  seems  to  have  been  of  a  different  nature  from  that 
evinced  by  the  material  Vampire  of  modern  days,  nor  does 
that  ghastly  revenant  seem  by  any  means  fully  to  correspond 
to  such  ghostly  destroyers  as  the  spirit  of  Gello,  or  the 
spectres  of  Medea's  slaughtered  children.  It  is  not  only 
in  the  Vampire,  however,  that  we  find  a  point  of  close  con- 
tact between  the  popular  beliefs  of  the  New-Greeks  and 
the  Slavonians.  Prof.  Bernhard  Schmidt's  excellent  work 
is  full  of  examples  which  prove  how  intimately  they  are 
connected. 

The  districts  of  the  Russian  Empire  in  which  a  belief 
in  vampires  mostly  prevails  are  White  Russia  and  the 
Ukraine.  But  the  ghastly  blood-sucker,  the  Upirj  whose 
name  has  become  naturalized  in  so  many  alien  lands  under 
forms  resembling  our  "  Vampire,"  disturbs  the  peasant- 
nature  (die  Slavicitaf)  of  the  name  beyond  all  doubt.  —  "Volksleben  der  Neugriechcn," . 
1871,  p.  159. 

*  In  Crete  and  Rhodes,  катаха-vaq  ;  in  Cyprus,  aapiuouhoQ;  in  Tenos,  avai- 
KadoviuevoQ.  The  Turks,  according  to  Mr.  Tozer,  give  the  name  of  vurkolak,  and 
some  of  the  Albanians,  says  Hahn,  give  that  of  f3ovpfio2.aK-OV,  to  the  restless  dead. 
Ibid.  p.  160. 

t  Russian  vamfiir,  South-Russian  ufiuir,  anciently  ufiir  ;  Polish  upior,  Polish  and 
Bohemian  npir.  Supposed  by  some  philologists  to  be  from  /#'  =  drink,  whence 
the  Croatian  name  for  a  vampire  pijawica.  See  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  n. 
410. 


GHOST  STORIES.  325 

mind  in  many  other  parts  of  Russia,  though  not  perhaps 
with  the  same  intense  fear  which  it  spreads  among  the  in- 
habitants of  the  above-named  districts,  or  of  some  other 
Slavonic  lands.  The  numerous  traditions  which  have 
gathered  around  the  original  idea  vary  to  some  extent 
according  to  their  locality,  but  they  are  never  radically  in- 
consistent. 

Some  of  the  details  are  curious.  The  Little-Russians 
hold  that  if  a  vampire's  hands  have  grown  numb  from  re- 
maining long  crossed  in  the  grave,  he  makes  use  of  his 
teeth,  which  are  like  steel.  When  he  has  gnawed  his  way 
with  these  through  all  obstacles,  he  first  destroys  the  babes 
he  finds  in  a  house,  and  then  the  older  inmates.  If  fine 
salt  be  scattered  on  the  floor  of  a  room,  the  vampire's  foot- 
steps may  be  traced  to  his  grave,  in  which  he  will  be  found 
resting  with  rosy  cheek  and  gory  mouth. 

The  Kashoubes  say  that  when  a  Vieszcy,  as  they  call 
the  Vampire,  wakes  from  his  sleep  within  the  grave,  he 
begins  to  gnaw  his  hands  and  feet ;  and  as  he  gnaws,  one 
after  another,  first  his  relations,  then  his  other  neighbors, 
sicken  and  die.  When  he  has  finished  his  own  store  of 
flesh,  he  rises  at  midnight  and  destroys  cattle,  or  climbs  a 
belfry  and  sounds  the  bell.  All  who  hear  the  ill-omened 
tones  will  soon  die.  But  generally  he  sucks  the  blood  of 
sleepers.  Those  on  whom  he  has  operated  will  be  found 
next  morning  dead,  with  a  very  small-  wound  on  the  left 
side  of  the  breast,  exactly  over  the  heart.  The  Lusatian 
Wends  hold  that  when  a  corpse  chews  its  shroud  or  sucks 
its  own  breast,  all  its  kin  will  soon  follow  it  to  the  grave. 
The  Wallachians  say  that  a  murony — a  sort  of  cross  be- 
tween a  werwolf  and  a  vampire,  connected  by  name  with 
our  nightmare — can  take  the  form  of  a  dog,  a  cat,  or  a 


32G  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

toad,  and  also  of  any  blood-sucking  insect.  When  he  is 
•exhumed,  he  is  found  to  have  long  nails  of  recent  growth 
on  his  hands  and  feet,  and  blood  is  streaming  from  his 
eyes,  ears,  nose  and  mouth. 

The  Russian  stories  give  a  very  clear  account  of  the 
operation  performed  by  the  vampire  on  his  victims.  Thus, 
one  night,  a  peasant  is  conducted  by  a  stranger  into  a 
house  where  lie  two  sleepers,  an  old  man  and  a  youth. 
"  The  stranger  takes  a  pail,  places  it  near  the  youth,  and 
strikes  him  on  the  back;  immediately  the  back  opens,  and 
forth  flows  rosy  blood.  The  stranger  fills  the  pail  full,  and 
drinks  it  dry.  Then  he  fills  another  pail  with  blood  from 
the  old  man,  slakes  his  brutal  thirst,  and  says  to  the  peas- 
ant, "  It  begins  to  grow  light !  let  us  go  back  to  my  dwell- 
ing." * 

Many  skazkas  also  contain,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
very  clear  directions  how  to  deprive  a  vampire  of  his  bale- 
ful power.  According  to  them,  as  well  as  to  their  parallels 
elsewhere,  a  stake  must  be  driven  through  the  murderous 
corpse.  In  Russia  an  aspen  stake  is  selected  for  that  pur- 
pose, but  in  some  places  one  made  of  thorn  is  preferred. 
But  a  Bohemian  vampire,  when  staked  in  this  manner  in 
the  year  1337,  says  Mannhardt,  f  merely  exclaimed  that 
the  stick  would  be  very  useful  for  keeping  off  dogs ;  and  a 
strigon  (or  Istrian  vampire)  who  was  transfixed  with  a 
sharp  thorn  cudgel  near  Laibach,  in  1672,  pulled  it  out  of 
his  body  and  flung  it  back  contemptuously.  The  only  cer- 
tain methods  of  destroying  a  vampire  appear  to  be  either 
to  consume  him  by  fire,  or  to  chop   off  his  head  with  a 


*  Afanasief ,  P.  I'.S  iii.  558.  The  story  is  translated  in  full  in  "  Songs  of  the 
Itussian  People,"  pp.  4c  1,  412. 

t  In  a  most  valuable  article  on  "Vampirism"  in  the  "  Zeitschrift  fur  deutsche 
Mythologie  und  Sittenkunde,"  Bd.  iv.  1859,  pp.  259-S2. 


GHOST  STORIES.  327 

grave-digger's  shovel.  The  Wends  say  that  if  a  vampire 
is  hit  over  the  back  of  the  head  with  an  implement  of  that 
kind,  he  will  squeal  like  a  pig. 

The  origin  of  the  Vampire  is  hidden  in  obscurity.  Tn 
modern  times  it  has  generally  been  a  wizard,  or  a  witch, 
or  a  suicide,*  or  a  person  who  has  come  to  a  violent  end, 
or  who  has  been  cursed  by  the  Church  or  by  his  parents, 
who  takes  such  an  unpleasant  means  of  recalling  himself 
to  the  memory  of  his  surviving  relatives  and  acquaintances. 
But  even  the  most  honorable  dead  may  become  vampires 
by  accident.  He  whom  a  vampire  has  slain  is  supposed, 
in  some  countries,  himself  to  become  a  vampire.  The 
leaping  of  a  cat  or  some  other  animal  across  a  corpse, 
even  the  flight  of  a  bird  above  it,  may  turn  the  innocent 
defunct  into  a  ravenous  demon. f  Sometimes,  moreover,  a 
man  is  destined  from  his  birth  to  be  a  vampire,  being  the 
offspring  of  some  unholy  union.  In  some  instances  the 
Evil  One  himself  is  the  father  of  such  a  doomed  victim,  in 
others  a  temporarily  animated  corpse.  But  whatever  may 
be  the  cause  of  a  corpse's  "  vampirism,"  it  is  generally 
agreed  that  it  will  give  its  neighbors  no  rest  until  they  have 
at  least  transfixed  it.     What  is  very  remarkable  about  the 


*  How  superior  our  intelligence  is  to  that  of  Slavonian  peasants  is  proved  by  the 
fact  that  they  still  drive  stakes  through  supposed  vampires,  whereas  our  law  no  longer 
demands  that  a  suicide  shall  have  a  stake  driven  through  his  corpse.  That  rite  was 
abolished  by  4  Geo.  iv.  с  52. 

t  Compare  with  this  belief  the  Scotch  superstition  mentioned  by  Pennant,  that  if 
a  Hog  or  cat  pass  over  a  corpse  the  animal  must  be  killed  at  once.  As  illustrative  of 
tins  idea,  Mr.  Henderson  states,  on  the  authority  of  "an  old  Northumbrian  hind," 
that  "  in  one  case,  just  as  a  funeral  was  about  to  leave  the  house,  the  cat  jumped  over 
the  С\  ffin,  and  no  one  would  move  till  the  cat  was  destroyed/'  In  another,  a  colly 
dog  jumped  over  a  coffin  which  a  funeral  party  had  set  on  the  ground  while  they 
rested.  "  It  was  felt  by  all  that  the  dog  must  be  killed,  without  hesitation,  before 
they  proceeded  farther,  and  killed  it  was."  With  us  the  custom  survives  ;  its 
e>rplanation  has  been  forgotten.  See  Henderson's  "Notes  on  the  Folk  Lore  of  the 
Northern  Comities  of  England,"  1S66,  p.  43. 


3J8  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

operation  is,  that  the  stake  must  be  driven  through  the 
vampire's  body  by  a  single  blow.  A  second  would  restore 
it  to  life.  This  idea  accounts  for  the  otherwise  unexplained 
fact  that  the  heroes  of  folk-tales  are  frequently  warned  that 
they  must  on  no  account  be  tempted  into  striking  their 
magic  foes  more  than  one  stroke.  Whatever  voices  may 
cry  aloud  "  Strike  again  !  "  they  must  remain  contented 
with  a  single  blow.* 

*  A  great  deal  of  information  about  vampires,  and  also  about  turnskins,  wizards 
and  witches,  will  be  found  in  Afanasief,  P.  V.S.  iii.  chap,  xxvi.,  on  which  I  have 
freely  drawn.  The  subject  has  been  treated  with  his  usual  judgment  and  learning  by 
Mr.  Tylor  in  his  "  Primitive  Culture,"  ii.  175,  176.  For  several  ghastly  stories  about 
the  longing  of  Rakshasas  and  Vetalas  for  human  flesh,  some  of  which  bear  a  strong 
resemblance  to  Slavonic  vampire  tales,  see  Brockhaus's  translation  of  the  first  five 
books  of  the  "  Kathasaritsagara,"  vol.  i.  p.  94 ;  vol.  ii.  pp.  13,  142,  147. 


LEGENDS.  329 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LEGENDS. 
I. 

About  Saints. 

Ks  besides  the  songs  or pyesni  there  are  current  among 
fte  people  a  number  of  stikhiox  poems  on  sacred  subjects, 
so  together  with  the  skazki  there  have  been  retained  in 
the  popular  memory  a  multitude  of  legendui,  or  legends 
relating  to  persons  or  incidents  mentioned  in  the  Bible  or 
in  ecclesiastical  history.  Many  of  them  have  been  ex- 
tracted from  the  various  apocryphal  books  which  in  olden 
times  had  so  wide  a  circulation,  and  many  also  from  the 
lives  of  the  Saints ;  some  of  them  may  be  traced  to  such 
adaptations  of  Indian  legends  as  the  "  Varlaam  and  Josa- 
phat  "  attributed  to  St.  John  of  Damascus  ;  and  others 
appear  to  be  ancient  heathen  traditions,  which,  with  altered 
names  and  slightly  modified  incidents,  have  been  made  to 
do  service  as  Christian  narratives.  But  whatever  may  be 
their  origin,  they  all  bear  witness  to  the  fact  of  their  having 
been  exposed  to  various  influences,  and  many  of  them  may 
fairly  be  considered  as  relics  of  hoar  antiquity,  memorials 
of  that  misty  period  when  the  pious  Slavonian  chronicler, 


330  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

struck  by  the  confusion  of  Christian  with  heathen  ideas 
and  ceremonies  then  prevalent,  styled  his  countrymen  a 
two-faithed  people.* 

On  the  popular  tales  of  a  religious  character  current 
among  the  Russian  peasantry,  the  duality  of  their  creed, 
or  of  that  of  their  ancestors,  has  produced  a  twofold  effect. 
On  the  one  hand,  into  narratives  drawn  from  purely  Chris- 
tian sources  there  has  entered  a  pagan  element,  most 
clearly  perceptible  in  stories  which  deal  with  demons  and 
departed  spirits  ;  on  the  other  hand,  an  attempt  has  been 
made  to  give  a  Christian  nature  to  what  are  manifestly 
heathen  legends,  by  lending  saintly  names  to  their  charac- 
ters and  clothing  their  ideas  in  an  imitation  of  biblical 
language.  Of  such  stories  as  these,  it  will  be  as  well  to 
give  a  few  specimens. 

Among  the  legends  borrowed  from  the  apocryphal 
books  and  similar  writings,  many  of  which  are  said  to  be 
still  carefully  preserved  among  the  "  Schismatics,"  con- 
cealed in  hiding-places  of  which  the  secret  is  handed  down 
from  father  to  son — as  was  once  the  case  with  the  Hussite 
books  among  the  Bohemians — there  are  many  which  relate 
to  the  creation  of  the  world  and  the  early  history  of  man. 
One  of  these  states  that  when  the  Lord  had  created  Adam 
and  Eve,  he  stationed  at  the  gates  of  Paradise  the  dog, 
then  a  clean  beast,  giving  it  strict  orders  not  to  give  admit- 
tance to  the  Evil  One.  But  "  the  Evil  One  came  to  the 
gates  of  Paradise,  and  threw  the  dog  a  piece  of  bread,  and 
the  dog  went  and  let  the  Evil  One  into  Paradise.  Then 
the  Evil  One  set  to  work  and  spat  over  Adam  and  Eve — 
covered  them  all  over  with  spittle,  from  the  head  to  the 
little  toe  of  the  left  foot."     Thence  is  it  that  spittle  is  im- 

*  Afanasief,  Leger.dui,  p.  6. 


LEGENDS.  331 

pure  (poganci).  So  Adam  and  Eve  were  turned  out  of 
Paradise,  and  the  Lord  said  to  the  dog : 

"  Listen,  О  Dog  !  thou  wert  a  Dog  (Sobaka),  a  clean 
beast;  through  all  Paradise  the  most  holy  didst  thou  roam. 
Henceforward  shalt  thou  be  a  Hound  (Pes,  or  Pyos),  an 
unclean  beast.  Into  a  dwelling  it  shall  be  a  sin  to  admit 
thee ;  into  a  church  if  thou  dost  run,  the  church  must  be 
consecrated  anew." 

And  so — the  story  concludes — "  ever  since  that  time  it 
has  been  called  not  a  dog  but  a  hound — skin-deep  it  is 
unclean  (pogana),  but  clean  within." 

According  to  another  story,  when  men  first  inhabited 
the  earth,  they  did  not  know  how  to  build  houses,  so  as  to 
keep  themselves  warm  in  winter.  But  instead  of  asking 
aid  from  the  Lord,  they  applied  to  the  Devil,  who  taught 
them  how  to  make  an  izba  or  ordinary  Russian  cottage. 
Following  his  instructions,  they  made  wooden  houses,  each 
of  which  had  a  door  but  no  window.  Inside  these  huts  it 
was  warm  ;  but  there  was  no  living  in  them,  on  account  of 
the  darkness.  "  So  the  people  went  back  to  the  Evil  One. 
The  Evil  one  strove  and  strove,  but  nothing  came  of  it, 
the  izba  still  remained  pitch  dark.  Then  the  people 
prayed  unto  the  Lord.  And  the  Lord  said :  "  Hew  out  a 
window!"  So  they  hewed  out  windows,  and  it  became 
light."  * 

Some  of  the  Russian  traditions  about  the  creation  of 
man  are  closely  connected  with  Teutonic  myths.  The 
Schismatics  called  Dukhobortsui,  or  Spirit-Wrestlers,  for 
instance,  hold  that  man  was  composed  of  earthly  materials, 

*  These  two  stories  are  quoted  by  Buslaef,  in  a  valuable  essay  on  "  The  Russian 
Popular  Epos."  "  1st.  Och."  i.  438.  Another  tradition  states  that  the  dog  was 
originally  "  naked,"  i.  е.,  without  hair ;  but  the  devil,  in  order  to  seduce  it  from  its 
oyalty,  gave  it  a  shuba,  or  pelisse,  i.  е.,  a  coat  of  hair. 


332  Л  US S IAN  FOLK-  TALES. 

but  that  God  breathed  into  his  body  the  breath  of  life. 
"  His  flesh  was  made  of  earth,  his  bones  of  stone,  his  veins 
of  roots,  his  blood  of  water,  his  hair  of  grass,  his  thought 
of  the  wind,  his  spirit  of  the  cloud.!'  *  Many  of  the  Rus- 
sian stones  about  the  early  ages  of  the  world,  also,  are 
current  in  Western  Europe,  such  as  that  about  the  rye — 
which  in  olden  days  was  a  mass  of  ears  from  top  to  bottom. 
But  some  lazy  harvest-women  having  cursed  "  God's  corn," 
the  Lord  waxed  wroth  and  began  to  strip  the  ears  from  the 
stem.  But  when  the  last  ear  was  about  to  fall,  the  Lord 
had  pity  upon  the  penitent  culprits,  and  allowed  the  single 
ear  to  remain  as  we  now  see  it.f 

A  Little-Russian  variant  of  this  story  says  that  Ilya 
(Elijah),  was  so  angry  at  seeing  the  base  uses  to  which  a 
woman  turned  "  God's  corn,"  that  he  began  to  destroy  all 
the  corn  in  the  world.  But  a  dog  begged  for,  and  received 
a  few  ears.  From  these,  after  Ilya's  wrath  was  spent, 
mankind  obtained  seed,  and  corn  began  to  grow  again  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  but  not  in  its  pristine  bulk  and  beauty. 
It  is  on  account  of  the  good  service  thus  rendered  to  our 
race  that  we  ought  to  cherish  and  feed  the  dog.  % 

Another  story,,  from  the  Archangel  Government,  tells 
how  a  certain  King,  as  he  roamed  afield  with  his  princes 
and  boyars,  found  a  grain  of  corn  as  large  as  a  sparrow's 
egg.  Marvelling  greatly  at  its  size,  he  tried  in  vain  to 
obtain  from  his  followers  some  explanation  thereof.  Then 
they  bethought  them  of  "  a  certain  man  from  among  the 
old  people,  who  might  be  able  to  tell  them  something 
about  it."     But  when  the  old  man  came,  "scarcely  able  to 

*  Buslaef,  "  1st.  Och,"  i.  147,  where  the  Teutonic  equivalents  are  given. 
t  Tereshchenko,  v.  48.     For  a  German  version  of  the  story,  see  the  KM.,  No. 
124,  "  Die  Kornahre." 

X  Afanasief,  P.l'.S.  i.  4З2. 


LEGENDS.  333 

crawl  along  on  a  pair  of  crutches,"  he  said  he  knew  nothing 
about  it,  but  perhaps  his  father  might  remember  something. 
So  they  sent  for  his  father,  who  came  limping  along  with 
the  help  of  one  crutch,  and  who  said : 

"  I  have  a  father  living,  in  whose  granary  I  have  seen 
just  such  a  seed." 

So  they  sent  for  his  father,  a  man  a  hundred  and  seventy 
years  old.  And  the  patriarch  came,  v/alking  nimbly  need- 
ing neither  guide  nor  crutch.  Then  the  King  began  to 
question  him,  saying : 

"  Who  sowed  this  sort  of  corn  ?  " 

"  I  sowed  it,  and  reaped  it,"  answered  the  old  man, 
"  and  now  I  have  some  of  it  in  my  granary.  I  keep  it  as 
a  memorial.  When  I  was  young,  the  grain  was  large  and 
plentiful,  but  after  a  time  it  began  to  grow  smaller  and 
smaller." 

"  Now  tell  me,"  asked  the  King, ."  how  comes  it,  old 
man,  that  thou  goest  more  nimbly  than  thy  son  and  thy 
grandson  ? " 

"  Because  I  lived  according  to  the  law  of  the  Lord," 
answered  the  old  man.  "  I  held  mine  own,  I  grasped  not 
at  what  was  another's."  # 

The  existence  of  hills  is  accounted  for  by  legendary 
lore  in  this  wise.  When  the  Lord  was  about  to  fashion 
the  face  of  the  earth,  he  ordered  the  Devil  to  dive  into  the 
watery  depths  and  bring  thence  a  handful  of  the  soil  he 
found  at  the  bottom.  The  Devil  obeyed,  but  when  he 
filled  his  hand,  he  filled  his  mouth  also.  The  Lord  took 
the  soil,  sprinkled  it  around,  and  the  Earth  appeared,  all 
perfectly  flat.  The  Devil,  whose  mouth  was  quite  full, 
looked  on  for  some  time  in  silence.     At  last  he  tried  to 

*  Afntiasief,  Legcndui,  p.  19. 


Ш  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

speak,  but  choked,  and  fled  in  terror.  After  him  followed 
the  thunder  and  the  lightning,  and  so  he  rushed  over  the 
whole  face  of  the  earth,  hills  springing  up  where  he  coughed, 
and  sky-cleaving  mountains  where  he  leaped.* 

As  in  other  countries,  a  number  of  legends  are  current 
respecting  various  animals.  Thus  the  Old  Ritualists  will 
not  eat  the  cray-fish  {rak),  holding  that  it  was  created  by 
the  Devil.  On  the  other  hand  the  snake  (uzh,  the  harm- 
less or  common  snake)  is  highly  esteemed,  for  tradition 
says  that  when  the  Devil,  in  the  form  of  a  mouse,  had 
gnawed  a  hole  in  the  Ark,  and  thereby  endangered  the 
safety  of  Noah  and  his  family,  the  snake  stopped  up  the 
leak  with  its  head,  f  The  flesh  of  the  horse  is  considered 
unclean,  because  when  the  infant  Saviour  was  hidden  in 
the  manger  the  horse  kept  eating  the  hay  under  which  the 
babe  was  concealed,  whereas  the  ox  not  only  would  not 
touch  it,  but  brought  back  hay  on  its  horns  to  replace 
what  the  horse  had  eaten.  According  to  an  old  Lithuanian 
tradition,  the  shape  of  the  sole  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
Queen  of  the  Baltic  Sea  once  ate  one  half  of  it  and  threw 
the  other  half  into  the  sea  again.  A  legend  from  the 
Kherson  Government  accounts  for  it  as  follows.  At  the 
time  of  the  Angelical  Salutation,  the  Blessed  Virgin  told 
the  Archangel  Gabriel  that  she  would  give  credit  to  his 
words  "  if  a  fish,  one  side  of  which  had  already  been  eaten, 
were  to  come  to  life  again.  That  very  moment  the  fish 
came  to  life,  and  was  put  back  in  the  water." 

With  the  birds  many  graceful  legends  are  connected. 

*  Tereschenko,  v.  p.  45.  Some  of  these  legends  have  been  translated  by  O.  von. 
Riinsberg-Diiringsfeld  in  the  "  Ausland,"  Dec.  9,  1872. 

t  According  to  a  Bohemian  legend  the  Devil  created  the  mouse,  that  it  might 
destroy  "  God's  corn,"  whereupon  the  Lord  created  the  cat. 


LEGENDS.  335 

There  is  a  bird,  probably  the  peewit,  which  during  dry 
weather  may  be  seen  always  on  the  wing,  and  piteously 
crying  Peet,  Peet*  as  if  begging  for  water.  Of  it  the  fol- 
lowing tale  is  told.  When  God  created  the  earth,  and 
determined  to  supply  it  with  seas,  lakes  and  rivers,  he 
ordered  the  birds  to  convey  the  waters  to  their  appointed 
places.  They  all  obeyed  except  this  bird,  which  refused 
to  fulfil  its  duty,  saying  that  it  had  no  need  of  seas,  lakes 
or  rivers,  to  slake  its  thirst.  Then  the  Lord  waxed  wroth 
and  forbade  it  and  its  posterity  ever  to  approach  a  sea  or 
stream,  allowing  it  to  quench  its  thirst  with  that  water  only 
which  remains  in  hollows  and  among  stones  after  rain. 
From  that  time  it  has  never  ceased  its  wailing  cry  of 
"Drink,  Drink,"  Peet  Peet  j 

When  the  Jews  were  seeking  for  Christ  in  the  garden, 
says  a  Kharkof  legend,  all  the  birds,  except  the  sparrow, 
tried  to  draw  them  away  from  his  hiding-place.  Oidy  the 
sparrow  attracted  them  thither  by  its  shrill  chirruping. 
Then  the  Lord  cursed  the  sparrow,  and  forbade  that  men 
should  eat  of  its  flesh.  In  other  parts  of  Russia,  tradition 
tells  that  before  the  crucifixion  the  swallows  carried  off 
the  nails  provided  for  the  use  of  the  executioners,  but  the 
sparrows  brought  them  back.  And  while  our  Lord  was 
hanging  on  the  cross  the  sparrows  were  maliciously  ex- 
claiming Jif !  jfif!  or  "  He  is  living  !  He  is  living  !  "  in 
order  to  urge  on  the  tormentors  to  fresh  cruelties.  But 
the  swallows  cried,  with  opposite  intent,  Umer !  Umer i 
"  lie  is  dead  !  He  is  dead."  Therefore  it  is  that  to  kill  a 
swallow  is  a  sin,  and  that  its  nest  brings  good  luck  to  a 
house.  But  the  sparrow  is  an  unwelcome  guest,  whose 
entry  into   a  cottage  is  a  presage  of  woe,     As  a  punish- 

*  Pit,  =  to  drink.  t  Tereschenko,  v.  47. 


836  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

ment  for  its  sins,  its  legs  have  been  fastened  together  by 
invisible  bonds,  and  therefore  it  always  hops,  not  being 
able  to  run.* 

A  great  number  of  the  Russian  legends  refer  to  the 
visits  which  Christ  and  his  Apostles  are  supposed  to  pay 
to  men's  houses  at  various  times,  but  especially  during  the 
period  between  Easter  Sunday  and  Ascension  Day.  In 
the  guise  of  indigent  wayfarers,  the  sacred  visitors  enter 
into  farm-houses  and  cottages  and  ask  for  food  and  lodg- 
ing ;  therefore  to  this  day  the  Russian  peasant  is  ever  un- 
willing to  refuse  hospitality  to  any  man,  fearing  lest  he 
might  repulse  angels  unawares.  Tales  of  this  kind  are 
common  in  all  Christian  lands,  especially  in  those  in  which 
their  folk-lore  has  preserved  some  traces  of  the  old  faith 
in  the  heathen  gods  who  once  walked  the  earth,  and  in 
patriarchal  fashion  dispensed  justice  among  men.  Many 
of  the  Russian  stories  closely  resemble  those  of  a  similar 
nature  which  occur  in  German  and  Scandinavian  collec- 
tions ;  all  of  them,  for  instance,  agreeing  in  the  unfavorable 
light  in  which  they  place  St.  Peter.  The  following  abridg- 
ment of  the  legend  of  "  The  Poor  Widow,"  f  may  be  taken 
as  a  specimen  of  the  Russian  tales  of  this  class. 

Long,  long  ago,  Christ  and  his  twelve  Apostles  were 
wandering  about  the  world,  and  they  entered  into  a  village 
one  evening,  and  asked  a  rich  moujik  to  allow  them  to 
spend  the  night  in  his  house.  But  he  would  not  admit 
them,  crying  : 

"  Yonder  lives  a  widow  who  takes  in  beggars  ;  go  to 
her." 

So  they  went  to  the  widow,  and  asked  her.     Now  she 

•  Afanasief,  Le^eriiiui,  p.  13. 

i  Afanasief,  Legending  No.  3.    From  the  Voroncje  Government. 


LEGENDS.  337 

was  so  poor  that  she  had  nothing  in  the  house  but  a  crust 
of  bread  and  a  handful  of  flour.  She  had  a  cow,  but  it 
had  not  calved  yet,  and  gave  no  milk.  But  she  did  all 
she  could  for  the  wayfarers,  setting  before  them  all  the 
food  she  had,  and  letting  them  sleep  beneath  her  roof. 
And  her  store  of  bread  and  flour  was  wonderfully  increased, 
so  that  her  guests  fed  and  were  satisfied.  And  the  next 
morning  they  set  out  anew  on  their  journey. 

As  they  went  along  the  road  there  met  them  a  wolf. 
And  it  fell  down  before  the  Lord,  and  begged  for  food. 
Then  said  the  Lord,  "  Go  to  the  poor  widow's  ;  slay  her 
cow,  and  eat." 

The  Apostles  remonstrated  in  vain.  The  wolf  set  off, 
entered  the  widow's  cow-house,  and  killed  her  cow.  And 
when  she  heard  what  had  taken  place,  she  only  said  . 

"  The  Lord  gave,  the  Lord  has  taken  away.  Holy  is 
His  will  !  " 

As  the  sacred  wayfarers  pursued  their  journey,  there 
came  rolling  towards  them  a  barrel  full  of  money.  Then 
the  Lord  addressed  it,  saying : 

"  Roll,  О  barrel,  into  the  farmyard  of  the  rich  moujik!  " 

Again  the  Apostles  vainly  remonstrated.  The  barrel 
went  its  way,  and  the  rich  moujik  found  it,  and  stowed  it 
away,  grumbling  the  while  : 

"  The  Lord  might  as  well  have  sent  twice  as  much  !  " 

The  sun  rose  higher,  and  the  Apostles  began  to  thirst. 
Then  said  the  Lord  : 

"  Follow  that  road,  and  ye  will  find  a  well ;  there  drink 
уош  fill." 

They  went  along  that  road  and  found  the  well.  But 
they  could  not  drink  thereat,  for  its  water  was  foul  and 
impure,  and  swarming  with  snakes  and  frogs  and  toads. 


B38  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

So  they  returned  to  where  the  Lord  awaited  them,  de» 
scribed  what  they  had  seen,  and  resumed  their  journey. 
After  a  time  they  were  sent  in  search  of  another  well. 
And  this  time  they  found  a  place  wherein  was  water  pure 
and  cool,  and  around  grew  wondrous  trees,  whereon 
heavenly  birds  sat  singing.  And  when  they  had  slaked 
their  thirst,  they  returned  unto  the  Lord,  who  said  : 

"  Wherefore  did  ye  tarry  so  long  ?  " 

"  We  only  stayed  while  we  were  drinking,"  replied  the 
Apostles.  "  We  did  not  spend  above  three  minutes  there 
in  all." 

"  Not  three  minutes  did  ye  spend  there,  but  three 
whole  years,"  replied  the  Lord.  "  As  it  was  in  the  first 
well,  so  will  it  be  in  the  other  world  with  the  rich  moujik  ! 
But  as  it  was  in  the  second  well,  so  will  it  be  in  that  world 
with  the  poor  widow  !  " 

Sometimes  our  Lord  is  supposed  to  wander  by  himself, 
under  the  guise  of  a  beggar.  In  the  story  of  "  Christ's 
Brother  "  *  a  young  man — whose  father,  on  his  deathbed, 
had  charged  him  not  to  forget  the  poor — goes  to  church 
on  Easter  Day,  having  provided  himself  with  red  eggs  to 
give  to  the  beggars  with  whom  he  should  exchange  the 
Pascal  greeting.  After  exhausting  his  stock  of  presents, 
he  finds  that  there  remains  one  beggar  of  miserable  ap- 
pearance to  whom  he  has  nothing  to  offer,  so  he  takes  him 
home  to  dinner.  After  the  meal  the  beggar  exchanges 
crosses  with  his  host,f  giving  him  "a  cross  which  blazes 
like  fire,"  and  invites  him  to  pay  him  a  visit  on  the  follow- 
ing Tuesday.  To  an  enquiry  about  the  way,  he  replies, 
"You  have  only  to  go  along  yonder  path  and  say,  "Grant. 

*  Afanasief,  Legendtii,  No.  8- 

t  Who  thus  becomes  his  "brother  of  the  cross."     This  cross-trothership  is  con» 
•idered  a  close  spiritual  affinity. 


LEGENDS.  33d 

thy  blessing,  0  Lord  !  "  and  you  will  come  to  where  I 
am. 

The  young  man  does  as  he  is  told,  and  commences 
his  journey  on  the  Tuesday.  On  his  way  he  hears  voices, 
as  though  of  children,  crying,  "  О  Christ's  brother,  ask 
Christ  for  us — have  we  to  suffer  long?"  A  little  later  he 
sees  a  group  of  girls  who  are  ladling  water  from  one  well 
into  another,  who  make  the  same  request.  At  last  he  ar- 
rives at  the  end  of  his  journey,  finds  the  aged  mendicant 
who  had  adopted  him  as  his  brother,  and  recognizes  him 
as  "  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  Himself."  The  youth  relates 
what  he  has  seen,  and  asks  : 

"  Wherefore,  О  Lord,  are  the  children  suffering?" 

"Their  mothers  cursed  them  while  still  unborn,"  is  the 
reply.  "  Therefore  is  it  impossible  for  them  to  enter  into 
Paradise." 

"  And  the  girls  ?  " 

"  They  used  to  sell  milk,  and  they  put  water  into  the 
milk.  Now  they  are  doomed  to  pour  water  from  well  to 
well  eternally." 

After  this  the  youth  is  taken  into  Paradise,  and  brought 
to  the  place  there  provided  for  him.* 

Sometimes  the  sacred  visitor  rewards  with  temporal 
goods  the  kindly  host  who  has  hospitably  received  him. 
Thus  the  story  of  "  Beer  and  Corn  "  f  tells  how  a  certain 
man  was  so  poor  that  when  the  rest  of  the  peasants  were 
brewing  beer,  and  making  other  preparations  to  celebrate 
an  approaching  feast  of  the  Church,  he  found  his  cupboard 

*  Afanasief,  in  his  notes  to  this  story,  gives  several  of  its  variants.  The  re-wards  and 
punishments  awarded  in  a  future  life  form  the  theme  of  a  great  number  of  moral  par» 
ables,  apparently  of  Oriental  extraction.     For  an  interesting  parallel   from  th*   Neil. 
gherry  Hills,  see  Gover's  "  Folk-Songs  of  Southern  India,"  pp.  81-7. 
t  Afanasief,  Legemhci,  No.  7. 


340  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

perfectly  bare.  In  vain  did  he  apply  to  a  rich  neighbor, 
who  was  in  the  habit  of  lending  goods  and  money  at  usurious 
rates  ;  having  no  security  to  offer,  he  could  borrow  nothing. 
But  on  the  eve  of  the  festival,  when  he  was  sitting  at  home  in 
sadness,  he  suddenly  rose  and  drew  near  to  the  sacred  paint- 
ing which  hung  in  the  corner,  and  sighed  heavily,  and  said, 

"  О  Lord  !  forgive  me,  sinner  that  I  am  !  I  have  not 
even  wherewith  to  buy  oil,  so  as  to  light  the  lamp  before 
the  image*  for  the  festival !  " 

Soon  afterwards  an  old  man  entered  the  cottage,  and 
obtained  leave  to  spend  the  night  there.  After  a  time  the 
guest  enquired  why  his  host  was  so  sad,  and  on  learning 
the  reason,  told  him  to  go  again  to  his  rich  neighbor  and 
borrow  a  quarter  of  malt.  The  moujik  obeyed,  and  soon 
returned  with  the  malt,  which  the  old  man  ordered  him  to 
throw  into  his  well.  When  this  was  done  the  villager  and 
his  guest  went  to  bed. 

Next  morning  the  old  man  told  his  guest  to  borrow  a 
number  of  tubs,  and  fill  them  with  liquor  drawn  from  the 
well,  and  then  to  make  his  neighbors  assemble  and  drink 
it.  He  did  so,  and  the  buckets  were  filled  with  "  such  beer 
as  neither  fancy  nor  imagination  can  conceive,  but  only  a 
skazka  can  describe."  The  villagers,  excited  by  the  news, 
collected  in  crowds,  and  drank  the  beer  and  rejoiced.  Last 
of  all  came  the  rich  neighbor,  begging  to  know  how  such 
wonderful  beer  was  brewed.  The  moujik  told  him  the 
whole  story,  whereupon  he  straightway  commanded  his 
servants  to  pour  all  his  best  malt  into  his  well.  And  next 
day  he  hastened  to  the  well  to  taste  the  liquor  it  contained ; 
but  he  found  nothing  but  malt  and  water ;  not  a  drop  of 
beer  was  there. 

•  The  icona,  икых^  or  holy  picture» 


LEGENDS.  341 

We  may  lake  next  the  legends  current  among  the  peas- 
antry about  various  saints.  Of  these,  the  story  of  "  The 
Prophet  Elijah  and  St.  Nicholas,"  will  serve  as  a  good 
specimen.  But,  in  order  to  render  it  intelligible,  a  few 
words  about  "  Ilya  the  Prophet,"  as  Elijah  is  styled  in 
Russia,  may  as  well  be  prefixed. 

It  is  well  known  that  in  the  days  of  heathenism  the 
Slavonians  worshipped  a  thunder-god,  Perun,*  who  oc- 
cupied in  their  mythological  system  the  place  which  in 
the  Teutonic  was  assigned  to  a  Donar  or  a  Thor.  He 
was  believed,  if  traditions  may  be  relied  upon,  to  sway  the 
elements,  often  driving  across  the  sky  in  a  flaming  car, 
and  launching  the  shafts  of  the  lightning  at  his  demon 
foes.  His  name  is  still  preserved  by  the  western  and 
southern  Slavonians  in  many  local  phrases,  especially  in 
imprecations  ;  but,  with  the  introduction  of  Christianity 
into  Slavonic  lands,  all  this  worship  of  his  divinity  came 
to  an_  end.  Then  took  place,  as  had  occurred  before  in 
other  countries,  the  merging  of  numerous  portions  of  the 
old  faith  in  the  new,  the  transferring  of  many  of  the  at- 
tributes of  the  old  gods  to  the  sacred  personages  of  the 
new  religion,  f  During  this  period  of  transition  the  ideas 
which  were  formerly  associated  with  the  person  of  Perun, 
the  thunder-god,  became  attached  to  that  of  the  Prophet 
Ilya  or  Elijah. 

One  of  the  causes  which  conduced  to  this  result  may 

*  For  some  account  of  Perun — the  Lithuanian  Perkunas — whose  name  and  attri- 
butes appear  to  be  closely  connected  with  those  of  the  Indian  Parjanya,  see  the 
"  Songs  of  the  Russian  Nation,"  pp.  86-102. 

t  A  Servian  song,  for  instance,  quoted  by  Buslaef  ("  1st.  Och.''  i.  361)  states  that 
"  The  Thunder"  (i.e.,  the  Thunder-God  or  Perun)  "  began  to  divide  gifts.  To  God 
(Bogn)  it  gave  the  heavenly  heights  ;  to  St.  Peter  the  summer  "  (Peirovskie  so  calleJ 
after  the  Saint)  "  heats  ;  to  St.  John,  the  ice  and  snow ;  to  Nicholas,  power  ovrr  the 
waters,  and  to  Ilya  the  lightning  and  the  thunderbolt." 


342  R USSIAN  FOLK-  ТА LES. 

have  been — if  Perun  really  was  considered  in  old  times,  as 
he  is  said  to  have  been,  the  Lord  of  the  Harvest — that  the 
day  consecrated  by  the  Church  to  Elijah,  July  20,  occurs 
in  the  beginning  of  the  harvest  season,  and  therefore  the 
peasants  naturally  connected  their  new  saint  with  their  old 
deity.  But  with  more  certainty  may  it  be  accepted  that, 
the  leading  cause  was  the  similarity  which  appeared  to  the 
recent  converts  to  prevail  between  their  dethroned  thunder- 
god  and  the  prophet  who  was  connected  with  drought  and 
with  rain,  whose  enemies  were  consumed  by  fire  from  on 
high,  and  on  whom  waited  "  a  chariot  of  fire  and  horses 
of  fire,"  when  he  was  caught  up  by  a  whirlwind  into 
heaven.  And  so  at  the  present  day,  according  to  Russian 
tradition,  the  Prophet  Ilya  thunders  across  the  sky  in  a 
flaming  car,  and  smites  the  clouds  writh  the  darts  of  the 
lightning.  In  the  Vladimir  Government  he  is  said  "  to 
destroy  devils  with  stone  arrows," — weapons  corresponding 
to  the  hammer  of  Thor  and  the  lance  of  Indra.  On  his 
day  the  peasants  everywhere  expect  thunder  and  rain,  and 
in  some  places  they  set  out  rye  and  oats  on  their  gates, 
and  ask  their  clergy  to  laud  the  name  of  Ilya,  that  he  may 
bless  their  cornfields  with  plenteousness.  There  are  dis- 
tricts, also,  in  which  the  people  go  to  church  in  a  body  on 
Ilya's  day,  and  after  the  service  is  over  they  kill  and  roast 
a  beast  which  has  been  purchased  at  the  expense  of  the 
community.  Its  flesh  is  cut  up  into  small  pieces  and  sold, 
the  money  paid  for  it  going  to  the  church.  To  stay  away 
from  this  ceremony,  or  not  to  purchase  a  piece  of  the 
meat,  would  be  considered  a  great  sin  ;  to  mow  or  make 
hay  on  that  day  would  be  to  incur  a  terrible  risk,  for  Ilya 
might  smite  the  field  with  the  thunder,  or  burn  up  the 
crop  with  the  lightning.     In  the  old  Novgorod  there  used 


LEGENDS.  343 

to  be  two  churches,  the  one  dedicated  to  "  Ilya  the  Wet," 
the  other  to  "  Ilya  the  Dry."  To  these  a  cross-bearing 
procession  was  made  when  a  change  in  the  weather  was 
desired  :  to  the  former  in  times  of  drought,  to  the  latter 
when  injury  was  being  done  to  the  crops  by  rain.  Dis- 
eases being  considered  to  be  evil  spirits,  invalids  used  to 
pray  to  the  thunder-god  for  relief.  And  so,  at  the  present 
day,  a  zagovor  or  spell  against  the  Siberian  cattle-plague 
entreats  the  "  Holy  Prophet  of  God  Ilya,"  to  send  "  thirty 
angels  in  golden  array,  with  bows  and  with  arrows  "  to 
destroy  it.  The  Servians  say  that  at  the  division  of  the 
world  Ilya  received  the  thunder  and  lightning  as  his  share, 
and  that  the  crash  and  blaze  of  the  storm  are  signs  of  his 
contest  with  the  devil.  Wherefore  the  faithful  ought  not  to 
cross  themselves  when  the  thunder  peals,  lest  the  evil  one 
should  take  refuge  from  the  heavenly  weapons  behind  the 
protecting  cross.  The  Bulgarians  say  that  forked  lightning 
is  the  lance  of  Ilya  who  is  chasing  the  Lamia  fiend  :  sum- 
mer lightning  is  due  to  the  sheen  of  that  lance,  or  to"  the 
fire  issuing  from  the  nostrils  of  his  celestial  steeds.  The 
white  clouds  of  summer  are  named  by  them  his  heavenly 
sheep,  and  they  say  that  he  compels  the  spirits  of  dead 
Gypsies  to  form  pellets  of  snow — by  men  styled  hail — 
with  which  he  scourges  in  summer  the  fields  of  sinners.* 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  ideas  connected  by  Slavonian 
tradition  with  the  person  of  the  Prophet  Elijah  or  Ilya. 
To  St.  Nicholas,  who  has  succeeded  to  the  place  occupied 
by  an  ancient  ruler  of  the  waters,  a  milder  character  is 
attributed  than  to  Ilya.  the  thunder-god's  successor.  As 
Ilya  is  the  counterpart  of  Thor,  so  does  Nicholas  in  some 

*  Afanasief,  Legendui,  pp.   137-40,  P.V.S.,  i.  469-83.     Cf.  Grimm's  "  Deutsche 
Mylhologie,"  pp.  157-59. 


344  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

respects  resemble  Odin.  The  special  characteristics  of  the 
Saint  and  the  Prophet  are  fairly  contrasted  in  the  following 
story. 

Elijah  the  Prophet  and  Nicholas* 

Л  long  while  ago  there  lived  a  Moujik.  Nicholas's  day  he 
always  kept  holy,  but  Elijah's  not  a  bit ;  he  would  even  work 
upon  it.  In  honor  of  St.  Nicholas  he  would  have  a  taper  light- 
ed and  a  service  performed,  but  about  Elijah  the  Prophet  he 
forgot  so  much  as  to  think. 

Well,  it  happened  one  day  that  Elijah  and  Nicholas  were 
walking  over  the  land  belonging  to  this  Moujik;  and  as  they 
walked  they  looked — in  the  cornfields  the  green  blades  were 
growing  up  so  splendidly  that  it  did  one's  heart  good  to  look  at 
them. 

"Here'llbe  a  good  harvest,  a  right  good  harvest!"  says 
Nicholas,  "  and  the  Moujik,  too,  is  a  good  fellow  sure  enough, 
both  honest  and  pious  :  one  who  remembers  God  and  thinks 
about  the  Saints  !     It  will  fall  into  good  hands — " 

"  We'll  see  by-and-by  whether  much  will  fall  to  his  share  ! " 
answered  Elijah ;  "  when  I've  burnt  up  all  his  land  with  lightning, 
and  beaten  it  all  flat  with  hail,  then  this  Moujik  of  yours  will 
know  what's  right,  and  will  learn  to  keep  Elijah's  day  holy." 

Well,  they  wrangled  and  wrangled  j  then  they  parted  asun- 
der.    St.  Nicholas  went  off  straight  to  the  Moujik  and  said  : 

"  Sell  all  your  corn  at  once,  just  as  it  stands,  to  the  Priest 
of  Elijah. f  If  you  don't,  nothing  will  be  left  of  it :  it  will  all  be 
beaten  flat  by  hail." 

Off  rushed  the  Moujik  to  the  Priest. 

"Won't  your  Reverence  buy  some  standing  corn  ?  I'll  sell 
my  whole  crop.  I'm  in  such  pressing  need  of  money  just  now. 
It's  a  case  of  pay  up  with  me!  Buy  it,  Father!  I'll  sell  it 
cheap." 

*  Afanasief,  Legendui,  No.  10.     From  the  Yaroslaf  Govenimett 
t  1Г  inskomy  bat'kye — to  the  Elijah  father. 


LEGENDS.  315 

They  bargained  and  bargained,  and  came  to  an  agreement 
The  Moujik  got  his  money  and  went  home. 

Some  little  time  passed  by.  There  gathered  together,  there 
came  rolling  up,  a  storm-cloud;  with  a  terrible  raining  and  hail- 
ing did  it  empty  itself  over  the  Moujik's  cornfields,  rutting 
down  all  the  crop  as  if  with  a  knife — not  even  a  single  blade  did 
it  leave  standing. 

Next  day  Elijah  and  Nicholas  walked  past.    Says  Elijah  : 

"Only  see  how  I've  devastated  the  Moujik's  cornfield  !  '' 

"  The  Moujik's  !  No,  brother  !  Devastated  it  you  have 
splendidly,  only  that  field  belongs  to  the  Elijah  Priest,  not  to 
the  Moujik." 

u  To  the  Priest !     How's  that  ?  " 

"  Why,  this  way.  The  Moujik  sold  it  last  week  tc  the 
Elijah  Priest,  and  got  all  the  money  for  it.  And  so,  methinks, 
the  Priest  may  whistle  for  his  money  !  " 

"  Stop  a  bit !  "  said  Elijah.  "  I'll  set  the  field  all  right  again. 
It  shall  be  twice  as  good  as  it  was  before." 

They  finished  talking,  and  went  each  his  own  way.  St. 
Nicholas  returned  to  the  Moujik,  and  said  : 

"  Go  to  the  Priest  and  buy  back  your  crop — you  won't  lose 
anything  by  it." 

The  Moujik  went  to  the  Priest,  made  his  bow,  and  said  : 

"I  see,  your  Reverence,  God  has  sent  you  a  misfortune— 
the  hail  has  beaten  the  whole  field  so  flat  you  might  roll  a  ball 
over  it.  Since  things  are  so,  let's  go  halves  in  the  loss.  I'll 
take  my  field  back,  and  here's  half  of  your  money  for  you  to 
relieve  your  distress." 

The  Priest  was  rejoiced,  and  they  immediately  struck  hands 
on  the  bargain. 

Meanwhile — goodness  knows  how — the  Moujik's  ground 
began  to  get  all  right.  From  the  old  roots  shot  forth  new  ten- 
der stems.  Rain-clouds  came  sailing  exactly*  over  the  cornfield 
and  gave  the  soil  to  drink.  There  sprang  up  a  marvellous  crop 
— tall  and  thick.     As  to  weeds,  there  positively  was  not  one  to  be» 


846  7?  US  SI  A  N  FOLK-  ТА  L  ES. 

seen.  And  the  ears  grew  fuller  and  fuller,  till  they  were  fairly 
bent  right  down  to  the  ground. 

Then  the  dear  sun  glowed,  and  the  rye  grew  ripe — like  so 
much  gold  did  it  stand  in  the  fields.  Many  a  sheaf  did  the 
Moujik  gather,  many  a  heap  of  sheaves  did  he  set  up;  and  now 
he  was  beginning  to  carry  the  crop,  and  to  gather  it  together  into 
ricks. 

At  that  very  time  Elijah  and  Nicholas  came  walking  by 
again.     Joyfully  did  the  Prophet  gaze  on  all  the  land,  and  say : 

"  Only  look,  Nicholas  !  what  a  blessing  !  Why,  I  have  re- 
warded the  Priest  in  such  wise,  that  he  will  never  forget  it  aU 
his  life." 

"  The  Priest  ?  No,  brother!  the  blessing  indeed  is  great, 
but  this  land,  you  see,  belongs  to  the  Moujik.  The  Priest 
aasn't  got  anything  whatsoever  to  do  with  it." 

"  What  are  you  talking  about  ? " 

"  It's  perfectly  true.  When  the  hail  beat  all  the  cornfield 
flat,  the  Moujik  went  to  the  Priest  and  bought  it  back  again  at 
half  price." 

"  Stop  a  bit !  "  says  Elijah.  "  I'll  take  the  profit  out  of  the 
corn.  However  many  sheaves  the.  Moujik  may  lay  on  the 
threshing-floor,  he  shall  never  thresh  out  of  them  more  than  a 
peck*  at  a  time." 

"A  bad  piece  of  work!  "  thinks  St.  Nicholas.  Off  he  went 
at  once  to  the  Moujik. 

"  Mind,"  says  he,  "  when  you  begin  threshing  your  corn, 
never  put  more  than  one  sheaf  at  a  time  on  the  threshing-floor." 

The  Moujik  began  to  thresh  :  from  every  sheaf  \\i  got  apeck 
of  grain.  All  his  bins,  all  his  storehouses,  he  crammed  with 
rye  ;  but  still  much  remained  over.  So  he  built  himself  new 
barns,  and  filled  them  as  full  as  they  could  hold. 

Well,  one  day  Elijah  and  Nicholas  came  walking  past  his 
homestead,  and  the  Prophet  began  looking  here  and  there,  and 
said : 

*  Strictly  speaking,  a  c/tt!verik=$.jy$  gallons. 


LEGENDS.  317 

"  Do  you  see  what  barns  he's  built  ?  has  he  got  anything  to 
put  into  them  ?  " 

"They're  quite  full  already,"  answers  Nicholas. 

"Why,  wherever  did  the  Moujik  get  such  a  lot  of  grain  ? " 

"Bless  me!  Why,  every  one  of  his  sheaves  gave  him  a 
peck  of  grain.  When  he  began  to  thresh  he  never  put  more 
than  one  sheaf  at  a  time  on  the  threshing-floor." 

"  Ah,  brother  Nicholas  !  "  said  Elijah,  guessing  the  truth, 
"it's  you  who  go  and  tell  the  Moujik  everything!  " 

"  What  an  idea !  that  I  should  go  and  tell — " 

"  As  you  please ;  that's  your  doing !  But  that  Moujik  sha'n't 
forget  me  in  a  hurry  !  " 

"  Why,  what  are  you  going  to  do  to  him  ?  " 

"  What  I  shall  do,  that  I  won't  tell  you,"  replies  Elijah. 

"  There's  a  great  danger  coming,"  thinks  St.  Nicholas,  and 
he  goes  to  the  Moujik  again,  and  says  : 

"  Buy  two  tapers,  a  big  one  and  a  little  one,  and  do  thus 
and  thus  with  them." 

Well,  next  day  the  Prophet  Elijah  and  St.  Nicholas  were 
walking  along  together  in  the  guise  of  wayfarers,  and  they  met 
the  Moujik,  who  was  carrying  two  wax  tapers — one,  a  big 
rouble  one,  and  the  other,  a  tiny  copeck  one. 

"  Where  are  you  going,  Moujik  ?  "  asked  St.  Nicholas. 

"Well,  I'm  going  to  offer  a  rouble  taper  to  Prophet  Elijah  ; 
he's  been  ever  so  good  to  me  !  When  my  crops  were  ruined 
by  the  hail,  he  bestirred  himself  like  anything,  and  gave  me 
a  plentiful  harvest,  twice  as  good  as  the  other  would  have 
been." 

"  And  the  copeck  taper,  what's  that  for?  " 

"Why,  that's  for  Nicholas  !  "  said  the  peasant  and  passec1 
on. 

"  There  now,  Elijah  !  "  says  Nicholas,  "you  say  I  go  and 
tell  everything  to  the  Moujik — surely  you  can  see  for  yourself 
bow  much  truth  there  is  in  that !  " 

Thereupon  the  matter  ended.  Elijah  was  appeased  and 
didn't  threaten  to  hurt  the  Moujik  any  more.    And  the  Moujik 


348  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

led  a  prosperous  life,  and  from  that  time  forward  he  held  in 
equal  honor  Elijah's  Day  and  Nicholas's  Day. 

It  is  not  always  to  the  Prophet  Ilya  that  the  power 
once  attributed  to  Perun  is  now  ascribed.  The  pagan 
wielder  of  the  thunderbolt  is  represented  in  modern  tradi- 
tions by  more  than  one  Christian  saint.  Sometimes,  as 
St.  George,  he  transfixes  monsters  with  his  lance  ;  some- 
times, as  St.  Andrew,  he  smites  with  his  mace  a  spot  given 
over  to  witchcraft.  There  was  a  village  (says  one  of  the 
legends  of  the  Chernigof  Government)  in  which  lived  more 
than  a  thousand  witches,  and  they  used  to  steal  the  holy 
stars,  until  at  last  "  there  was  not  one  left  to  light  our 
sinful  world."  Then  God  sent  the  holy  Andrew,  who 
struck  with  his  mace — and  all  that  village  was  swal- 
lowed up  by  the  earth,  and  the  place  thereof  became  a 
swamp.* 

About  St.  George  many  stories  are  told,  and  still  more 
ballads  (if  we  may  be  allowed  to  call  them  so)  are  sung. 
Under  the  names  of  Georgy,  Yury,  and  Yegory  the  Brave, 
he  is  celebrated  as  a  patron  as  well  of  wolves  as  of  flocks 
and  herds,  as  a  Christian  Confessor  struggling  and  suffer- 
ing for  the  faith  amid  pagan  foes,  and  as  a  chivalrous  de- 
stroyer of  snakes  and  dragons.  The  discrepancies  which 
exist  between  the  various  representations  given  of  his 
character  and  his  functions  are  very  glaring,  but  they  may 
be  explained  by  the  fact  that  a  number  of  legendary  ideas 
sprung  from  separate  sources  have  become  associated  with 
his  name  ;  so  that  in  one  story  his  actions  are  in  keeping 
with  the  character  of  an  old  Slavonian  deity,  in  another, 
with  that  of  a  Christian  or  a  Buddhist  saint. 

In  some  parts  of  Russia,  when  the  cattle  go  out  for  the 

•  Afanasief,  P.V.S.,  Hi.  455. 


LEGENDS.  349 

first  time  to  the  spring  pastures,  a  pie,  made  in  the  form 
of  a  sheep,  is  cut  up  by  the  chief  herdsman,  and  the  frag- 
ments are  preserved  as  a  remedy  against  the  diseases  to 
which  sheep  are  liable.  On  St.  George's  Day  in  spring, 
April  23,  the  fields  are  sanctified  by  a  church  service,  at 
the  end  of  which  they  are  sprinkled  with  holy  water.  In 
the  Tula  Government  a  similar  service  is  held  over  the 
wells.  On  the  same  day,  in  some  parts  of  Russia,  a  youth 
(who  is  called  by  the  Slovenes  the  Green  Yegory)  is 
dressed  like  our  own  ';  Jack  in  the  Green,"  with  foliage 
and  flowers.  Holding  a  lighted  torch  in  one  hand  and  a 
pie  in  the  other,  he  goes  out  to  the  cornfields,  followed  by 
girls  singing  appropriate  songs.  A  circle  of  brushwood  is 
then  lighted,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  set  the  pie.  All 
who  take  part  in  the  ceremony  then  sit  down  around  the 
fire,  and  eventually  the  pie  is  divided  among  them. 

Numerous  legends  speak  of  the  strange  connection 
which  exists  between  St.  George  and  the  Wolf.  In  Little 
Russia  that  animal  is  called  "  St.  George's  Dog,"  and  the 
carcases  of  sheep  which  wolves  have  killed  are  not  used 
for  human  food,  it  being  held  that  they  have  been  assigned 
by  divine  command  to  the  beasts  of  the  field.  The  human 
victim  whom  St.  George  has  doomed  to  be  thus  destroyed 
nothing  can  save.  A  man,  to  whom  such  a  fate  had  been 
allotted,  tried  to  escape  from  his  assailants  by  hiding  be- 
hind a  stove  •  but  a  wolf  transformed  itself  into  a  cat,  and 
at  midnight,  when  all  was  still,  it  stole  into  the  house  and 
seized  the  appointed  prey.  A  hunter,  who  had  been 
similarly  doomed,  went  on  killing  wolves  for  some  time, 
and  hanging  up  their  skins ;  but  when  the  fatal  hour  ar- 
rived, one  of  the  skins  became  a  wolf,  and  slew  him  by 
whom  it  had   before   been   slain.     In   Little   Russia   the 


350  R  USSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

wolves  have  their  own  herdsman  * — a  being  like  unto  a 
man,  who  is  often  seen  in  company  with  St.  George. 
There  were  two  brothers  (says  a  popular  tale),  the  one 
rich,  the  other  poor. .  The  poor  brother  had  climbed  up  a 
tree  one  night,  and  suddenly  he  saw  beneath  him  what 
seemed  to  be  two  men — the  one  driving  a  pack  of  wolves, 
the  other  attending  to  the  conveyance  of  a  quantity  of 
bread.  These  two  beings  were  St.  George  and  the  Lisun. 
And  St.  George  distributed  the  bread  among  the  wolves, 
and  one  loaf  which  remained  over  he  gave  to  the  poor 
brother;  who  afterwards  found  that  it  was  of  a  miraculous 
nature,  always  renewing  itself  and  so  supplying  its  owner 
with  an  inexhaustible  store  of  bread.  The  rich  brother, 
hearing  the  story,  climbed  up  the  tree  one  night  in  hopes 
of  obtaining  a  similar  present.  But  that  night  St.  George 
found  that  he  had  no  bread  to  give  to  one  of  his  wolves, 
so  he  gave  it  the  rich  brother  instead,  f 

One  of  the  legends  attributes  strange  forgetfulness  on 
one  occasion  to  St.  George.  A  certain  Gypsy  who  had  a 
wife  and  seven  children,  and  nothing  to  feed  them  with, 
was  standing  by  a  roadside  lost  in  reflection,  when  Yegory 
the  Brave  came  riding  by.  Hearing  that  the  saint  was  on 
his  way  to  heaven,  the  Gypsy  besought  him  to  ask  of  God 
how  he  was  to  support  his  family.  St.  George  promised 
to  do  so,  but  forgot.  Again  the  Gypsy  saw  him  riding 
past,  and  again  the  saint  promised  and  forgot.  In  a  third 
interview  the  Gypsy  asked  him  to  leave  behind  his  golden 
stirrup  as  a  pledge. 

A  third  time  St.  George  leaves  the  presence  of  the 
Lord  without  remembering  the  commission  with  which  he 

*  Called  Lisun,  Lisovik,  Polisun,  &c.     He  answers  to  the  Lyeshy  or  wood- 
demon  {lyes  =  a  forest)  mentioned  above,  p.  206. 
f  Afanasief,  P.V.S.  i.  711. 


LEGENDS.  351 

has  been  entrusted.  But  when  he  is  about  to  mount  his 
charger  the  sight  of  the  solitary  stirrup  recalls  it  to  his 
mind.  So  he  returns  and  states  the  Gypsy's  request,  and 
obtains  the  reply  that  "  the  Gypsy's  business  is  to  cheat 
and  to  swear  falsely."  As  soon  as  the  Gypsy  is  told  this, 
he  thanks  the  Saint  and  goes  off  home. 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  "  cries  Yegory.  "  Give  me 
back  my  golden  stirrup." 

"  What  stirrup  ?  "  asks  the  Gypsy. 

"  Why,  the  one  you  took  from  me. 

"  When  did  I  take  one  from  you  ?  I  see  you  now  for 
the  first  time  in  my  life,  and  never  a  stirrup  did  I  ever  take, 
so  help  me  Heaven  !  " 

So  Yegory  had  to  go  away  without  getting  his  stirrup 
back.* 

There  is  an  interesting  Bulgarian  legend  in  which  St. 
George  appears  in  his  Christian  capacity  of  dragon-slayer, 
but  surrounded  by  personages  belonging  to  heathen  my- 
thology. The  inhabitants  of  the  pagan  city  of  Troyan,  it 
states,  "  did  not  believe  in  Christ,  but  in  gold  and  silver." 
Now  there  were  seventy  conduits  in  that  city  which  sup- 
plied it  with  spring-water  ;  and  the  Lord  made  these  con- 
duits run  with  liquid  gold  and  silver  instead  of  water,  so 
that  all  the  people  had  as  much  as  they  pleased  of  the 
metals  they  worshipped,  but  they  had  nothing  to  drink. 

After  a  time  the  Lord  took  pity  upon  them,  and  there 
appeared  at  a  little  distance  from  the  city  a  deep  lake. 
To  this  they  used  to  go  for  water.  Only  the  lake  was 
guarded  by  a  terrible  monster,  which  daily  devoured  a 
maiden,  whom  the  inhabitants  of  Troyan  were  obliged  to 
give  to  it  in  return  for  leave  to  make  use  of  the  lake. 

•  Afana<4ef,  Legendui,  No.  12. 


352  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

This  went  on  for  three  years,  at  the  end  of  which  time  it 
fell  to  the  lot  of  the  king's  daughter  to  be  sacrificed  by  the 
monster.  But  when  the  Troyan  Andromeda  was  expose! 
on  the  shore  of  the  lake,  a  Perseus  arrived  to  save  her  in 
the  form  of  St.  George.  While  waiting  for  the  monster  to 
appear,  the  saint  laid  his  head  on  her  knees,  and  she  dressed 
his  locks.  Then  he  fell  into  so  deep  a  slumber  that  the 
monster  drew  nigh  without  awaking  him.  But  the  Princess 
began  to  weep  bitterly,  and  her  scalding  tears  fell  on  the 
face  of  St.  George  and  awoke  him,  and  he  slew  the  mon- 
ster, and  afterwards  converted  all  the  inhabitants  of  Troyan 
to  Christianity.* 

St  Nicholas  generally  maintains  in  the  legends  the 
kindly  character  attributed  to  him  in  the  story  in  which  he 
and  the  Prophet  Ilya  are  introduced  together.  It  is  to 
him  that  at  the  present  day  the  anxious  peasant  turns 
most  readily  for  help,  and  it  is  he  whom  the  legends  repre- 
sent as  being  the  most  prompt  of  all  the  heavenly  host  to 
assist  the  unfortunate  among  mankind.  Thus  in  one  of 
the  stories  a  peasant  is  driving  along  a  heavy  road  one 
autumn  day,  when  his  cart  sticks  fast  in  the  mire.  Just 
then  St.  Kasian  comes  by. 

"  Help  me,  brother,  to  get  my  cart  out  of  the  mud !  " 
says  the  peasant. 

"Get  along  with  you  !  "  replies  St.  Kasian.  "  Do  you 
suppose  I've  got  leisure  to  be  dawdling  here  with  you !  " 

Presently  St.  Nicholas  comes  that  way.  The  peasant 
addresses  the  same  request  to  him,  and  he  stops  and  gives 
the  required  assistance. 


•  Quoted  by  Buslaef,  "  1st.  Och."  1.  389.    Troyan  is  also  'he  name  of  a  mythical 
kiDg  who  often  figures  in  Slavonic  legends. 


LEGENDS.  353 

When  the  two  saints  arrive  in  heaven,  the  Lord  asks 
them  where  they  have  been. 

"  I  have  been  on  the  earth,"  replies  St.  Kasian.  "  And 
I  happened  to  pass  by  a  moujik  whose  cart  had  stuck  in 
the  mud.  He  cried  out  to  me,  saying,  '  Help  me  to  get 
my  cart  out ! '  But  I  was  not  going  to  spoil  my  heavenly 
apparel." 

"  I  have  been  on  the  earth,"  says  St.  Nicholas,  whose 
clothes  were  all  covered  with  mud.  "  I  went  along  that 
same  road,  and  I  helped  the  moujik  to  get  his  cart  free." 

Then  the  Lord  says,  "  Listen,  Kasian  !  Because  thou 
didst  not  assist  the  moujik,  therefore  shall  men  honor  thee 
by  thanksgiving  once  only  every  four  years.  But  to  thee, 
Nicholas,  because  thou  didst  assist  the  moujik  to  set  free 
his  cart,  shall  men  twice  every  year  offer  up  thanksgiv 
ing." 

"Ever  since  that  time,"  says  the  story,  "it  has  been 
customary  to  offer  prayers  and  thanksgiving  (molebnui)  to 
Nicholas  twice  a  year,  but  to  Kasian  only  once  every  leap- 
year."  * 

In  another  story  St.  Nicholas  comes  to  the  aid  of  an 
adventurer  who  watches  beside  the  coffin  of  a  bewitched 
princess.  There  were  two  moujiks  in  a  certain  village,  we 
are  told,  one  of  whom  was  very  rich  and  the  other  very 
poor.  One  day  the  poor  man,  who  was  in  great  distress, 
went  to  the  house  of  the  rich  man  and  begged  for  a  loan. 

"I  will  repay  it,  on  my  word.  Here  is  Nicholas  as  a 
surely,"  he  cried,  pointing  to  a  picture  of  St.  Nicholas. 

Thereupon  the  rich  man  lent  him  twenty  roubles.  The 
day  for  repayment  came,  but  the  poor  man  had  not  a  single 

*  Aianasief,  Legcmhii,  No  11.     From  the  Ore!  district, 
23 


354  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

copeck.  Furious  at  his  loss,  the  rich  man  rushed  to  the 
picture  of  St.  Nicholas,  crying — 

"  Why  don't  you  pay  up  for  that  pauper  ?  You  stood 
surety  for  him,  didn't  you  ?  " 

And  as  the  picture  made  no  reply,  he  tore  it  down 
from  the  wall,  set  it  on  a  cart  and  drove  it  away,  flogging 
it  as  he  went,  and  crying — 

"  Pay  me  my  money  !     Pay  me  my  money  !  " 

As  he  drove  past  the  inn  a  young  merchant  saw  him, 
and  cried — ■ 

'■  What  are  you  doing,  you  infidel !  " 

The  moujik  explained  that  as  he  could  not  get  his 
money  back  from  a  man  who  was  in  his  debt,  he  was  pro- 
ceeding against  a  surety ;  whereupon  the  merchant  paid 
the  debt,  and  thereby  ransomed  the  picture,  which  he  hung 
up  in  a  place  of  honor,  and  kept  a  lamp  burning  before  it. 
Soon  afterwards  an  old  man  offered  his  services  to  the 
merchant,  who  appointed  him  his  manager ;  and  from  that 
time  all  things  went  well  with  the  merchant. 

But  after  a  while  a  misfortune  befel  the  land  in  which 
he  lived,  for  "  an  evil  witch  enchanted  the  king's  daughter, 
who  lay  dead  all  day  long,  but  at  night  got  up  and  ate 
people."  So  she  was  shut  up  in  a  coffin  and  placed  in  a 
church,  and  her  hand,  with  half  the  kingdom  as  her  dowry, 
was  offered  to  any  one  who  could  disenchant  her.  The 
merchant,  in  accordance  with  his  old  manager's  instruc- 
tions, undertook  the  task,  and  after  a  series  of  adventures 
succeeded  in  accomplishing  it.  The  last  words  of  one  of 
the  narrators  of  the  story  are,  "  Now  this  old  one  was  no 
mere  man.     He  was  Nicholas  himself,  the  saint  of  God."  * 


*  Afanasief,  Legemhil,  pp.   141-5-     With  this  story  may  be  compared  that  oi 
'  The  Cross-Surety."     See  above,  p.  27, 


LEGENDS.  ЫЪ 

With  one  more  legend  about  this  favorite  saint,  1  will 
conclude  this  section  of  the  present  chapter.  In  some  of 
its  incidents  it  closely  resembles  the  story  of  "  The  Smith 
and  the  Demon,"  which  was  quoted  in  the  first  chapter. 

The  Priest  with  the  Greedy  Eyes.* 
In  the  parish  of  St.  Nicholas  there  lived  a  Pope.  This 
Pope's  eyes  were  thoroughly  pope-like. \  He  served  Nicholas 
several  years,  and  went  on  serving  until  such  time  as  there 
remained  to  him  nothing  either  for  board  or  lodging.  Then  our 
Pope  collected  all  the  church  keys,  looked  at  the  picture  of 
Nicholas,  thumped  him,  out  of  spite,  over  the  shoulders  with 
the  keys,  and  went  forth  from  his  parish  as  his  eyes  led  him. 
And  as  he  walked  along  the  road  he  suddenly  lighted  upon  an 
unknown  man. 

"  Hail,  good  man  !  "  said  the  stranger  to  the  Pope.  "  Whence 
do  you  come  and  whither  are  you  going  ?  Take  me  with  you 
as  a  companion." 

Well,  they  went  on  together.  They  walked  and  walked  for 
several  versts,  then  they  grew  tired.  It  was  time  to  seek  repose. 
Now  the  Pope  had  a  few  biscuits  in  his  cassock,  and  the  com- 
panion he  had  picked  up  had  a  couple  of  small  loaves .% 

"Let's  eat  your  loaves  first,"  says  the  Pope,  "  and  after- 
wards we'll  take  to  the  biscuits,  too." 

"  Agreed  !  "  replies  the  stranger.  "  We'll  eat  my  loaves, 
and  keep  your  biscuits  for  afterwards." 

Well,  they  ate  away  at  the  loaves  ;  each  of  them  ate  his  fill, 
but  the  loaves  got  no  smaller.  The  Pope  grew  envious : 
"  Come,"  thinks  he,  "  I'll  steal  them  from  him  !  "  After  the 
meal  the  old  man  lay  down  to  take  a  nap,  but  the  Pope  kept 
scheming  how  to  steal  the  loaves  from  him.     The  old  man  went 

*  Afanasief,  Legendui,  No.  5.    From  the  Archangel  Government. 

t  Fopovskie,  from  pop,  the  vulgar  name  for  a  priest,  the  Greek  тгатптад. 

X  The  prcivirka,  ox  pro  sf or  a,  is  a  small  loaf,  made  of  fine  wheat  flour.  It  1» 
used  for  the  communion  service,  but  before  consecration  it  is  freely  sold  and  pur- 
chased. 


356  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

to  sleep.  The  Pope  drew  the  loaves  out  of  his  pocket  and 
began  quietly  nibbling  them  at  his  seat.  The  old  man  awoke 
and  felt  for  his  loaves  ;  they  were  gone  ! 

"Where  are  my  loaves?"  he  exclaimed;  "who  has  eaten 
them  ?  was  it  you,  Pope  ?  " 

"  No,  not  I,  on  my  word  !  "  replied  the  Pope. 

"  Well,  so  be  it,"  said  the  old  man. 

They  gave  themselves  a  shake,  and  set  out  again  on  their 
journey.  They  walked  and  walked  ;  suddenly  the  road  branched 
off  in  two  different  directions.  Well,  they  both  went  the  same 
way,  and  soon  reached  a  certain  country.  In  that  country  the 
King's  daughter  lay  at  the  point  of  death,  and  the  King  had  given 
notice  that  to  him  who  should  cure  his  daughter  he  would  give 
half  of  his  kingdom,  and  half  of  his  goods  and  possessions  ;  but 
if  any  one  undertook  to  cure  her  and  failed,  he  should  have  his 
head  chopped  off  and  hung  up  on  a  stake.  Well,  they  arrived, 
elbowed  their  way  among  the  people  in  front  of  the  King's  palace, 
and  gave  out  that  they  were  doctors.  The  servant  came  out 
from  the  King's  palace,  and  began  questioning  them  : 

"  Who  are  you  ?  from  what  cities,  of  what  families  ?  what 
do  you  want  ?  " 

"  We  are  doctors,"  they  replied  ;  "  we  can  cure  the  Princess  !  " 

"  Oh  !  if  you  are  doctors,  come  into  the  palace." 

So  they  went  into  the  palace,  saw  the  Princess,  and  asked 
the  King  to  supply  them  with  a  private  apartment,  a  tub  of 
water,  a  sharp  sword,  and  a  big  table.  The  King  supplied 
them  with  all  these  things.  Then  they  shut  themselves  up  in 
the  private  apartment,  laid  the  Princess  on  the  big  table,  cut 
her  into  small  pieces  with  the  sharp  sword,  flung  them  into  the 
tub  of  water,  washed  them,  and  rinsed  them.  Afterwards  they 
began  putting  the  pieces  together ;  when  the  old  man  breathed 
on  them  the  different  pieces  stuck  together.  When  he  had  put 
all  the  pieces  together  properly,  he  gave  them  a  final  puff  of 
breath  :  the  Princess  began  to  quiver,  and  then  arose  alive  and 
well !  The  King  came  in  person  to  the  door  of  their  room,  and 
cried  • 


LEGENDS.  357 

"  In  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  the  Son,  and  the  Holy 
Ghost ! " 

"  Amen !  "  they  replied. 

"  Have  you  cured  the  Princess  ?  "  asked  the  King. 

"  We've  cured  her,"  say  the  doctors.     "  Here  she  is  !  " 

Out  went  the  Princess  to  the  King,  alive  and  well. 

Says  the  King  to  the  doctors  :  "  What  sort  of  valuables  wiL 
you  have  ?  would  you  like  gold  or  silver  ?  Take  whatever  you 
please." 

Well,  they  began  taking  gold  and  silver.  The  old  man  used 
only  a  thumb  and  two  fingers,  but  the  Pope  seized  whole  hand- 
fuls,  and  kept  on  stowing  them  away  in  his  wallet — shovelling 
them  into  it,  and  then  lifting  it  a  bit  to  see  if  he  was  strong 
enough  to  carry  it. 

At  last  they  took  their  leave  of  the  King  and  went  their  way. 
The  old  man  said  to  the  Pope,  "  We'll  bury  this  money  in  the 
ground,  and  go  and  make  another  cure."  Well,  they  walked 
and  walked,  and  at  length  they  reached  another  country.  In 
that  country,  also,  the  King  had  a  daughter  at  the  point  of  death, 
and  he  had  given  notice  that  whoever  cured  his  daughter  should 
have  half  of  his  kingdom  and  of  his  goods  and  possessions  ;  but 
if  he  failed  to  cure  her  he  should  have  his  head  chopped  off  and 
hung  up  on  a  stake.*  Then  the  Evil  One  afflicted  the  envious 
Pope,  suggesting  to  him  "  Why  shouldn't  he  go  and  perform 
the  cure  by  himself,  without  saying  a  word  to  the  old  man,  and 
so  lay  hold  of  all  the  gold  and  silver  for  himself  ? "  So  the 
Pope  walked  about  in  front  of  the  royal  gates,  forced  himself  on 
the  notice  of  the  people  there,  and  gave  out  that  he  was  a  doc- 
tor. In  the  same  way  as  before  he  asked  the  King  for  a  private 
room,  a  tub  of  water,  a  large  table,  and  a  sharp  sword.  Shutting 
himself  up  in  the  private  room,  he  laid  the  Princess  on  the  table, 
and  began  chopping  her  up  with  the  sharp  sword  ;  and  however 
much  the  Princess  might  scream  or  squeal,  the  Pope,  without 

*  A  few  lines  are  here  omitted  <>s  being  superfluous.  In  the  original  the  second 
princess  is  cured  exactly  as  the  first  had  been.  The  doctors  then  proceed  to  a  third 
Country,  where  they  find  precisely  the  same  position  of  affairs. 


358  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

paying  any  attention  to  either  screaming  or  squealing,  went  on 
chopping  and  chopping  just  as  if  she  had  been  so  much  beef. 
And  when  he  had  chopped  her  up  into  little  pieces,  he  threw 
them  into  the  tub,  washed  them,  rinsed  them,  and  then  put 
them  together  bit  by  bit,  exactly  as  the  old  man  had  done,  ex- 
pecting to  see  all  the  pieces  unite  with  each  other.  He  breathes 
on  them — but  nothing  happens  !  He  gives  another  puff — worse 
than  ever !  See,  the  Pope  flings  the  pieces  back  again  into  the 
water,  washes  and  washes,  rinses  and  rinses,  and  again  puts 
them  together  bit  by  bit.  Again  he  breathes  on  them — but  still 
nothing  comes  of  it. 

"Woe  is  me,"  thinks  the  Pope  ;  "here's  a  mess!  " 

Next  morning  the  King  arrives  and  looks — the  doctor  has 
had  no  success  at  all — he's  only  messed  the  dead  body  all  over 
with  muck ! 

The  King  ordered  the  doctor  off  to  the  gallows.  Then  our 
Pope  besought  him,  crying — 

"  О  King !  О  free  to  do  thy  will !  Spare  me  for  a  little 
time !     I  will  run  for  the  old  man,  he  will  cure  the  Princess." 

The  Pope  ran  off  in  search  of  the  old  man.  He  found  the 
old  man,  and  cried  : 

"  Old  man  !  I  am  guilty,  wretch  that  I  am !  The  Devil 
got  hold  of  me.  I  wanted  to  cure  the  King's  daughter  all  by 
myself,  but  I  couldn't.  Now  they're  going  to  hang  me.  Do 
help  me !  " 

The  old  man  returned  with  the  Pope. 

The  Pope  was  taken  to  the  gallows.  Says  the  old  man  to 
the  Pope  : 

"  Pope  !  who  ate  my  loaves  ?  " 

"  Not  I,  on  my  word !     So  help  me  Heaven,  not  I  !  " 

The  Pope  was  hoisted  on  to  the  second  step.  Says  the  old 
man  to  the  Pope  : 

"  Pope  !  who  ate  my  loaves  ?  " 

"  Not  I,  on  my  word !     So  help  me  Heaven,  not  I !  " 

He  mounted  the  third  step — and  again  it  was  "  Not  I  !  " 
And  now  his  head  was  actually  in  the  noose — but  it's  "  Not  I !  " 


LEGENDS.  359 

all  the  same.  Well,  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  !  Says  the 
old  man  to  the  King  : 

"  О  King !  О  free  to  do  thy  will !  Permit  me  to  cure  the 
Princess.  And  if  I  do  not  care  her,  order  another  noose  to  be 
got  ready.     A  noose  for  me,  and  a  noose  for  the  Pope  !  " 

Weil,  the  old  man  put  the  pieces  of  the  Princess's  body  to- 
gether, bit  by  bit,  and  breathed  on  them — and  the  Princess  stood 
up  alive  and  well.  The  King  recompensed  them  both  with 
silver  and  gold. 

"  Let's  go  and  divide  the  money,  Pope,"  said  the  old  man. 

So  they  went.  They  divided  the  money  into  three  heaps. 
The  Pope  looked  at  them,  and  said  : 

"  How's  this  ?  There's  only  two  of  us.  For  whom  is  this 
third  share  ? " 

"  That,"  says  the  old  man,  "  is  for  him  who  ate  my  loaves." 

"  I  ate  them,  old  man,"  cries  the  Pope ;  "  I  did  really,  so 
help  me  Heaven  !  " 

"  Then  the  money  is  yours,"  says  the  old  man.  "  Take  my 
share  too.  And  now  go  and  serve  in  your  parish  faithfully ; 
don't  be  greedy,  and  don't  go  hitting  Nicholas  over  the  shoulders 
with  the  keys." 

Thus  spake  the  old  man,  and  straightway  disappeared. 

[The  principal  motive  of  this  story  is,  of  course,  the  same  as  that  of  "  The  Smith 
and  the  Demon,"  in  No.  13  (see  above,  p.  70).  A  miraculous  cure  is  effected  by  a 
supernatural  being.  A  man  attempts  to  do  likewise,  but  fails.  When  about  to  undergo 
the  penalty  of  his  failure,  he  is  saved  by  that  being,  who  reads  him  a  moral  lesson. 
In  the  original  form  of  the  tale  the  supernatural  agent  was  probably  a  demigod,  whom 
a  vague  Christian  influence  has  in  one  instance  degraded  into  the  Devil,  in  another, 
canonized  as  St.  Nicholas. 

The  Medea's  cauldron  episode  occurs  in  very  many  folk-tales,  such  as  the  German 
"  Bruder  Lustig  "  (Grimm,  No.  81)  and  "  Das  junge  gegliihte  Mannlein  "  (Grimm, 
No.  147),  in  the  latter  of  which  our  Lord,  accompanied  by  St.  Peter,  spends  a  night 
in  a  Smith's  house,  and  makes  an  old  beggar-man  young  by  first  placing  him  in  the 
fire,  and  then  plunging  him  into  water.  After  the  departure  of  his  visitors,  the  Smith 
tries  a  similar  experiment  on  his  mother-in-law,  but  quite  unsuccessfully.  In  the  cor- 
responding Norse  tale  of  "The  Master-Smith,"  (Asbjornsen  and  Мое,  No-  21, 
Dasent,  No.  16)  an  old  beggar-woman  is  the  victim  of  the  Smith's  unsuccessful  ex. 
periment.  In  another  Norse  tale,  that  of  "  Peik"  (Asbjomsen's  New  Series,  No 
i'  \,  p.  219)  a  king  is  induced  to  kill  his  wife  and  his  daughter  in  the  mistaken  beliel 


560  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

that  he  will  be  able  to  restore  them  to  life.  In  one  of  the  stories  of  the  "  Dasakum- 
dracharita,"  a  king  is  persuaded  to  jump  into  a  certain  lake  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  a 
new  and  improved  body.  He  is  then  killed  by  his  insidious  adviser,  who  usurps  his 
throne,  pretending  to  be  the  renovated  monarch.  In  another  story  in  the  same  collec- 
tion a  king  believes  that  his  wife  will  be  able  to  confer  on  him  by  her  magic  skill  "  a 
most  celestial  figure,"  and  under  that  impression  confides  to  her  all  his  secrets,  after 
which  she  brings  about  his  death.  See  Wilson's  "  Essays,"  ii.  aij,  &c,  and  262,  &c 
Jacob's  "  Hindoo  Tales,"  pp.  180,  315.] 


LEGENDS.  Ml 


II. 

About  Demons. 

From  the  stories  which  have  already  been  quoted  some 
idea  may  be  gained  of  the  part  which  evil  spirits  play  in 
Russian  popular  fiction.  In  one  of  them  (No.  i)  figures 
the  ghoul  which  feeds  on  the  dead,  in  several  (Nos.  37,  38, 
45-48)  we  see  the  fiend-haunted  corpse  hungering  after 
human  flesh  and  blood ;  the  history  of  The  Bad  Wife 
(No.  7)  proves  how  a  demon  may  suffer  at  a  woman's 
hands,  that  of  The  Dead  Witch  (No.  3)  shows  to  what 
indignities  the  remains  of  a  wicked  woman  may  be  sub- 
jected by  the  fiends  with  whom  she  has  chosen  to  associate. 
In  the  Awful  Drunkard  (No.  6),  and  the  Fiddler  in  Hell 
(No.  41),  the  abode  of  evil  spirits  is  portrayed,  and  some 
light  is  thrown  on  their  manners  and  customs ;  and  in  the 
Smith  and  the  Demon  (No.  13),  the  portrait  of  one  of  their 
number  is  drawn  in  no  unkindly  spirit.  The  difference 
which  exists  between  the  sketches  of  fiends  contained  in 
these  stories  is  clearly  marked,  so  much  so  that  it  would 
of  itself  be  sufficient  to  prove  that  there  is  no  slight  con 
fusion  of  ideas  in  the  minds  of  the  Russian  peasants  with 
regard  to  the  demoniacal  beings  whom  they  generally  call 
chortiox  devils.  Still  more  clearly  is  the  contrast  between 
those  ideas  brought  out  by  the  other  stories,  many  in 
number,  into  which  those  powers  of  darkness  enter.     It 


352  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

is  evident  that  the  traditions  from  which  the  popular  con- 
ception of  the  ghostly  enemy  has  been  evolved  must  have 
been  of  a  complex  and  even  conflicting  character. 

Of  very  heterogeneous  elements  must  have  been  com- 
posed the  form  under  which  the  popular  fancy,  in  Russia 
as  well  as  in  other  lands,  has  embodied  the  abstract  idea  of 
evil.  The  diabolical  characters  in  the  Russian  tales  and 
legends  are  constantly  changing  the  proportions  of  their 
figures,  the  nature  of  their  attributes.  In  one  story  they 
seem  to  belong  to  the  great  and  widely  subdivided  family 
of  Indian  demons  ;  in  another  they  appear  to  be  akin  to 
certain  fiends  of  Turanian  extraction  ;  in  a  third  they  dis- 
play features  which  may  have  been  inherited  from  the  for- 
gotten deities  of  old  Slavonic  mythology  ;  in  all  the  stories 
which  belong  to  the  "  legendary  class  "  they  bear  manifest 
signs  of  having  been  subjected  to  Christian  influences,  the 
effect  of  which  has  been  insufficient  to  do  more  than 
slightly  to  disguise  their  heathenism. 

The  old  gods  of  the  Slavonians  have  passed  away  and 
left  behind  but  scanty  traces  of  their  existence  ;  but  still, 
in  the  traditions  and  proverbial  expressions  of  the  peasants 
in  various  Slavonic  lands,  there  may  be  recognized  some 
relics  of  the  older  faith.  Among  these  are  a  few  referring 
to  a  White  and  to  a  Black  God.  Thus,  among  the  peasants 
of  White  Russia  some  vague  memory  still  exists  of  a  white 
or  bright  being,  now  called  Byelun,*  who  leads  belated 
travellers  out  of  forests,  and  bestows  gold  on  men  who  do 
him  good  service.  "  Dark  is  it  in  the  forest  without  Bye- 
lun "  is  one  phrase  ;  and  another,  spoken  of  a  man  on 
whom  fortune  has  smiled,  is,  "  He  must  have  made  friends 

*  Byely  =  white.   See  the  "  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,"  p.  103,  the  "  Deutsche 
Mythologie,"  p.  203. 


LEGENDS.  3G3 

with  B)elun."  On  the  other  hand  the  memory  of  the  black 
or  evil  god  is  preserved  in  such  imprecations  as  the 
Ukraine  "  May  the  black  god  smite  thee  !  "  *  To  ancient 
pagan  traditions,  also,  into  which  a  Christian  element  has 
entered,  may  be  assigned  the  popular  belief  that  infants 
which  have  been  cursed  by  their  mothers  before  their 
birth,  or  which  are  suffocated  during  their  sleep,  or  which 
die  from  any  causes  unchristened  or  christened  by  a 
drunken  priest,  become  the  prey  of  demons.  This  idea 
has  given  rise  in  Russia,  as  well  as  elsewhere,  to  a  large 
group  of  stories.  The  Russian  peasants  believe,  it  is  said, 
that  in  order  to  rescue  from  the  fiends  the  soul  of  a  babe 
which  has  been  suffocated  in  its  sleep,  its  mother  must 
spend  three  nights  in  a  church,  standing  within  a  circle 
traced  by  the  hand  of  a  priest.  When  the  cocks  crow  on 
the  third  morning,  the  demons  will  give  her  back  her  dead 
child.f 

Great  stress  is  laid  in  the  skazkas  and  legends  upon 
the  terrible  power  of  a  parent's  curse.  The  "  hasty  word  " 
of  a  father  or  a  mother  will  condemn  even  an  innocent 
child  to  slavery  among  devils,  and  when  it  has  once  been 
uttered,  it  is  irrevocable.  It  might  have  been  supposed 
that  the  fearful  efficacy  of  such  an  imprecation  would  have 
silenced  bad  language,  as  that  of  the  Vril  rendered  wai 
impossible  among  the  Vril-ya  of  "The  Coming  Race;" 
but  that  such  was  not  the  case  is  proved  by  the  number  of 
narratives  which  turn  on  uncalled-for  parental  cursing. 
Here  is  an  abridgment  of  one  of  these  stories. 

There  was  an  old  man  who  lived  near  Lake  Onega, 
and  who  supported  himself  and  his  wife  by  hunting.     One 


*  Sltchob  tebe  cJwrny  bog  ubif '.'  Afanasief,  P.  V.  S.,  i.  93,  94. 
t  Afauasief,  Г,  V.S.  iii.  314,  315. 


364  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

day  when  he  was  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  game,  a  well* 
dressed  man  met  him  and  said, 

"  Sell  me  that  dog  of  yours,  and  come  for  your  money 
to  the  Mian  mountain  to-morrow  evening." 

The  old  man  sold  him  the  dog,  and  went  next  day  to 
the  top  of  the  mountain,  where  he  found  a  great  city  in- 
habited by  devils.*  There  he  soon  found  the  house  of  his 
debtor,  who  provided  him  with  a  banquet  and  a  bath.  And 
in  the  bath-room  he  was  served  by  a  young  man  who,  when 
the  bath  was  over,  fell  at  his  feet,  saying, 

"  Don't  accept  money  for  your  dog,  grandfather,  but 
ask  for  me !  " 

The  old  man  consented.  "  Give  me  that  good  youth," 
said  he.     "  He  shall  serve  instead  of  a  son  to  me." 

There  was  no  help  for  it ;  they  had  to  give  him  the 
youth.  And  when  the  old  man  had  returned  home,  the 
youth  told  him  to  go  to  Novgorod,  there  to  enquire  for  a 
merchant,  and  ask  him  whether  he  had  any  children. 

He  did  so,  and  the  merchant  replied, 

"  I  had  an  only  son,  but  his  mother  cursed  him  in  a 
passion,  crying,  "  The  devil  take  thee  !  "  f  And  so  the 
devil  carried  him  off." 

It  turned  out  that  the  youth  whom  the  old  man  had 
saved  from  the  devils  was  that  merchant's  son.  Thereupon 
the  merchant  rejoiced  greatly,  and  took  the  old  man  and 
his  wife  to  live  with  him  in  his  house.  % 

And  here  is  another  tale  of  the  same  kind,  from  the 
Vladimir  Government. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  an  old  couple,  and  they 
had  an  only  son.  His  mother  had  cursed  him  before  he 
was  born,  but  he  grew  up  and  married.     Soon  afterwards 

*  Lemboi,  perhaps  a  Samoyed  word. 

t  Lemboi  It  (tebya)  vostmil  %  Afanasief,  P.V.S.  iii.  pp.  314,  315 


LEGENDS.  36c 

he  suddenly  disappeared.  His  parents  did  all  they  could 
to  trace  him,  but  their  attempts  were  in  vain. 

Now  there  was  a  hut  in  the  forest  not  far  off,  and 
thither  it  chanced  that  an  old  beggar  came  one  night,  and 
lay  down  to  rest  on  the  stove.  Before  he  had  been  there 
long,  some  one  rode  up  to  the  door  of  the  hut,  got  off  his 
horse,  entered  the  hut,  and  remained  there  all  night,  mut- 
tering incessantly : 

"  May  the  Lord  judge  my  mother,  in  that  she  cursed 
me  while  a  babe  unborn  ! " 

Next  morning  the  beggar  went  to  the  house  of  the  old 
couple,  and  told  them  all  that  had  occurred.  So  towards 
evening  the  old  man  went  to  the  hut  in  the  forest,  and  hid 
himself  behind  the  stove.  Presently  the  horseman  arrived, 
entered  the  hut,  and  began  to  repeat  the  words  which  the 
beggar  had  overheard.  The  old  man  recognized  his  son, 
and  came  forth  to  greet  him,  crying  : 

"  О  my  dear  son  !  at  last  I  have  found  thee  !  never 
again  will  I  let  thee  go  !  " 

"  Follow  me  !  "  replied  his  son,  who  mounted  his_  horse 
and  rode  away,  his  father  following  him  on  foot.  Pres- 
ently they  came  to  a  river  which  was  frozen  over,  and  in 
the  ice  was  a  hole.*  And  the  youth  rode  straight  into  that 
hole,  and  in  it  both  he  and  his  horse  disappeared.  The 
old  man  lingered  long  beside  the  ice-hole,  then  he  returned 
home  and  said  to  his  wife: 

"  I  have  found  our  son,  but  it  will  be  hard  to  get  him 
back.     Why  he  lives  in  the  water  ! " 

Next  night  the  youth's  mother  went  to  the  hut,  but  she 
succeeded  no  better  than  her  husband  had  done. 

•  Frolub  (for  prarub"),  a  hole  cut  in  the  ice,  ai  d  kept  open,  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  at  the  water. 


366  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

So  on  the  third  night  his  young  wife  went  to  the  hut 
and  hid  behind  the  stove.  And  when  she  heard  the  horse- 
man enter  she  sprang  forth,  exclaiming  : 

"  My  darling  dear,  my  life-long  spouse  !  now  will  I 
never  part  from  thee  !  " 

"  Follow  me  !  "  replied  her  husband. 

And  when  they  came  to  the  edge  of  the  ice-hole — 

"  If  thou  goest  into  the  water,  then  will  I  follow  after 
thee  !  "  cried  she. 

"  If  so,  take  off  thy  cross,"  he  replied. 

She  took  off  her  cross,  leaped  into  the  ice-hole — and 
found  herself  in  a  vast  hall.  In  it  Satan  *  was  seated. 
And  when  he  saw  her  arrive,  he  asked  her  husband  whom 
he  had  brought  with  him. 

"  This  is  my  wife,"  replied  the  youth. 

"  Well  then,  if  she  is  thy  wife,  get  thee  gone  hence  with 
her  !  married  folks  must  not  be  sundered."  f 

So  the  wife  rescued  her  husband,  and  brought  him  back 
from  the  devils  into  the  free  light.  $ 

Sometimes  it  is  a  victim's  own  imprudence,  and  not  a 
parent's  "hasty  word,"  which  has  placed  him  in  the  power 
of  the  Evil  One.  There  is  a  well-known  story,  which  has 
spread  far  and  wide  over  Europe,  of  a  soldier  who  abstains 
for  a  term  of  years  from  washing,  shaving,  and  hair-comb- 
ing, and  who  serves,  or  at  least  obeys,  the  devil  during 
that  time,  at  the  end  of  which  he  is  rewarded  by  the  fiend 
with  great  wealth.  His  appearance  being  against  him,  he 
has  some  difficulty  in  finding  a  wife,  rich  as  he  is.     But 

*  Satana. 

t  The  word  by  which  the  husband  here  designates  his  wife  is  zakon,  which  prop, 
eily  signifies  (i)  law,  (2)  marriage.  Here  it  stands  for  "spouse."  Satan  replies, 
"  If  this  be  thy  zakon,  go  hence  therew  .n  !  to  sever  a  zakon  is  impossible-" 

X  Abridged  from  Afanasief,  P.  V.S.  iii.  J15,  316. 


LEGENDS.  367 

after  the  elder  sisters  of  a  family  have  refused  him,  the 
youngest  accepts  him  ;  whereupon  he  allows  himself  to  be 
cleansed,  combed,  and  dressed  in  bright  apparel,  and  leads 
a  cleanly  and  a  happy  life  ever  afterwards.* 

In  one  of  the  German  versions  of  this  story,  a  king's 
elder  daughter,  when  asked  to  marry  her  rich  but  slovenly 
suitor-,  replies,  ''  I  would  sooner  go  into  the  deepest  water 
than  do  that."  In  a  Russian  version,  f  the  unwashed 
soldier  lends  a  large  sum  of  money  to  an  impoverished 
monarch,  who  cannot  pay  his  troops,  and  asks  his  royal 
creditor  to  give  him  one  of  his  daughters  in  marriage  by 
way  of  recompense.  The  king  reflects.  He  is  sorry  for 
his  daughters,  but  at  the  same  time  he  cannot  do  without 
the  money.  At  last,  he  tells  the  soldier  to  get  his  portrait 
painted,  and  promises  to  show  it  to  the  princesses,  and 
see  if  one  of  them  will  accept  him.  The  soldier  has  his 
likeness  taken,  "  touch  for  touch,  just  exactly  as  he  is," 
and  the  king  shows  it  to  his  daughters.  The  eldest 
princess  sees  that  "the  picture  is  that  of  a  monster,  with 
dishevelled  hair,  and  uncut  nails,  and  unwiped  nose,"  and 
cries : 

"  I  won't  have  him  !  I'd  sooner  have  the  devil  ! " 

Now  the  devil  "  was  standing  behind  her,  pen  and 
paper  in  hand.  He  heard  what  she  said,  and  booked  her 
soul." 

When  the  second  princess  is   asked  whether  she  wil 
marry  the  soldier,  she  exclaims  : 

"  No  indeed  !  "  I'd  rather  die  an  old  maid,  I'd  soonei 
be  linked  with  the  devil,  than  marry  that  man  !  " 

When  the  devil  heard  that,  "  he  booked  her  soul  too." 

*  See  the  notes  in  Grimm's  KM.  Bd.  iii.  to  stcries  100  and  101. 
t  Afanasief,  v.  No.  26. 


368  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

But  tie  youngest  princess,  the  Cordelia  of  the  family, 
when  she  is  asked  whether  she  will  marry  the  man  who  has 
helped  her  father  in  his  need,  replies  : 

"  It's  fated  I  must,  it  seems  !  I'll  marry  him,  and  then- 
God's  will  be  done !  " 

While  the  preparations  are  being  made  for  the  marriage, 
the  soldier  arrives  at  the  end  of  his  term  of  service  to  "  the 
little  devil "  who  had  hired  him,  and  from  whom  he  had 
received  his  wealth  in  return  for  his  abstinence  and  clean- 
liness. So  he  calls  the  "little  devil,"  and  says,  "Now 
turn  me  into  a  nice  young  man." 

Accordingly  "the  little  devil  cut  him  up  into  small 
pieces,  threw  them  into  a  cauldron  and  set  them  on  to 
boil.  When  they  were  done  enough,  he  took  them  out 
and  put  them  together  again  properly — bone  to  bone,  joint 
to  joint,  vein  to  vein.  Then  he  sprinkled  them  with  the 
Waters  of  Life  and  Death — and  up  jumped  the  soldier,  a 
finer  lad  than  stories  can  describe,  or  pens  portray  ! " 

The  story  does  not  end  here.  When  the  "  little  devil " 
returns  to  the  lake  from  which  he  came,  "  the  grandfather" 
of  the  demons  asks  him — 

"  How  about  the  soldier  ?  " 

"  He  has  served  his  time  honestly  and  honorably,"  is 
the  reply.  "  Never  once  did  he  shave,  have  his  hair  cut, 
wipe  his  nose,  or  change  his  clothes."  The  "grandfather'* 
flies  into  a  passion. 

"  What !  in  fifteen  whole  years  you  couldn't  entrap  a 
soldier  !  What,  all  that  money  wasted  for  nothing  !  What 
sort  of  a  devil  do  you  call  yourself  after  that  ? " — and  or- 
dered him  to  be  flung  "  into  boiling  pitch." 

"Stop,  grandfather!"  replies  his  grandchild.  "I'va 
booked  two  souls  instead  of  the  soldier's  one." 


LEGENDS.  Ш% 

"  How's  that  ?  " 

"  Why,  this  «vay.  The  soldier  wanted  to  marry  one  of 
three  princesses,  but  the  elder  one  and  the  second  one  told 
their  father  that  they'd  sooner  marry  the  devil  than  the 
soldier.     So  you  see  both  of  them  are  ours." 

After  he  had  heard  this  explanation,  "  the  grandfather 
acknowledged  that  the  little  devil  was  in  the  right,  and 
ordered  him  to  be  set  free.  The  imp,  you  see,  understood 
his  business." 

[For  two  German  versions  of  this  story,  see  the  tales  of  "  Des  Teufels  russiger 
Bruder,"  and  "  Der  Barenhauter"  (Grimm,  Nos;  ioo,  101,  and  Bd.  iii.  pp.  181,  182). 
More  than  twelve  centuries  ago,  Hiouen-Thsang  transferred  the  following  story  from 
India  to  China.  A  certain  Rishi  passed  many  times  ten  thousand  years  in  a  religiou» 
ecstasy.  His  body  became  like  a  withered  tree.  At  last  he  merged  from  his  ecstasy, 
and  felt  inclined  to  marry,  so  he  went  to  a  neighboring  palace,  and  asked  the  king  tc 
bestow'  upon  him  one  of  his  daughters.  The  king,  exceedingly  embarrassed,  called 
the  princesses  together,  and  asked  which  of  them  would  consent  to  accept  the  dreaded 
suitor  (who,  of  course,  had  not  paid  the  slightest  attention  to  his  toilette  for  hundred» 
of  centuries).  Ninety-nine  of  those  ladies  flatly  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
him,  but  the  hundredth,  the  last  and  youngest  of  the  party,  agreed  to  sacrifice  hersell 
for  her  father's  sake.  But  when  the  Rishi  saw  his  bride  he  was  discontented,  and 
when  he  heard  that  her  elder  and  fairer  sisters  had  all  refused  him,  he  pronounced  a 
curse  which  made  all  ninety-nine  of  them  humpbacks,  and  so  destroyed  their  chance 
of  marrying  at  ail.  Stanislas  Julien's  "  Memoires  sur  les  contrees  occidentales," 
1857,  i.  pp.  244-7.] 

As  the  idea  that  "  a  hasty  word  "  can  place  its  utterer 
or  its  victim  in  the  power  of  the  Evil  One  (not  only  after 
death,  but  also  during  this  life)  has  given  rise  to  numerous 
Russian  legends,  and  as  it  still  exists,  to  some  extent,  as  a 
living  faith  in  the  minds  of  the  Russian  peasantry,  it  may 
be  as  well  to  quote  at  length  one  of  the  stories  in  which  it 
is  embodied.  It  will  be  recognized  as  a  variant  of  the 
stories  about  the  youth  who  visits  the  "  Water  King  "  and 
elopes  with  one  of  that  monarch's  daughters.  The  main 
difference  between  the  "  legend  "  we  are  about  to  quote, 
and  the  skazkas  which  have  already  been  quoted,  is  that  a 
devil  of  the  Satanic  type  is  substituted  in  it  for  the  mythi- 

24. 


370  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

cal  personage — whether  Slavonic  Neptune  or  Indian  Rak- 
shasa — who  played  a  similar  part  in  them. 

The  Hasty  Word.  * 
In  a  certain  village  there  lived  an  old  couple  in  great  poverty, 
and  they  had  one  son.     The  son  grew  up,f  and  the  old  woman 
began  to  say  to  the  old  man  : 

"  It's  time  for  us  to  get  our  son  married." 

"  Well  then,  go  and  ask  for  a  wife  for  him,"  said  he. 

So  she  went  to  a  neighbor  to  ask  for  his  daughter  for  her 
son  :  the  neighbor  refused.  She  went  to  a  second  peasant's, 
but  the  second  refused  too — to  a  third,  but  he  showed  her  the 
door.  She  went  round  the  whole  village  ;  not  a  soul  would 
grant  her  request.     So  she  returned  home  and  cried — ■ 

"  Well,  old  man  !  our  lad's  an  unlucky  fellow  !  " 

"  How  so  ?  " 

"  I've  trudged  round  to  every  house,  but  no  one  will  give 
him  his  daughter." 

"  That's  a  bad  business  !  "  says  the  old  man  ;  "  the  summer 
will  soon  be  coming,  but  we  have  no  one  to  work  for  us  here. 
Go  to  another  village,  old  woman,  perhaps  you  will  get  a  bride 
for  him  there." 

The  old  woman  went  to  another  village,  visited  every  house 
from  one  end  to  the  other,  but  there  wasn't  an  atom  of  good  to 
be  got  out  of  it.  Wherever  she  thrusts  herself,  they  always 
refuse.  With  what  she  left  home,  with  that  she  returned 
home. 

"  No,"  she  says,  "  no  one  wants  to  become  related  to  us 
poor  beggars." 

"  If  that's  the  case,"  answers  the  old  man,  "  there's  no  use 
in  wearing  out  }4)urlegs.     Jump  up  on  to  the  point 7."  % 

The  son  was  sorely  afflicted,  and  began  to  entreat  his  pa- 
rents, saying: 

*  Afanasief,  v.  No.  48. 

t    "  Entered  upon  his  matured  years,"   from  17  to  21. 

J  The  sleeping-place. 


LEGENDS.  371 

"  My  borr.  father  and  my  born  mother  !  give  me  your  oless- 
ing.     I  will  go  and  seek  my  fate  myself." 

"  But  where  will  you  go  ?  " 

"  Where  my  eyes  lead  me." 

So  they  gave  him  their  blessing,  and  let  him  go  whitherso- 
ever it  pleased  him.* 

Well,  the  youth  went  out  upon  the  highway,  began  to  weep 
very  bitterly,  and  said  to  himself  as  he  walked  : 

"Was  I  born  into  the  world  worse  than  all  other  men,  that 
not  a  single  girl  is  willing  to  marry  me  ?  Methinks  if  the  devil 
himself  would  give  me  a  bride,  I'd  take  even  her!  " 

Suddenly,  as  if  rising  from  the  earth,  there  appeared  before 
him  a  very  old  man. 

"  Good-day,  good  youth  !  " 

"  Good-day,  old  man  !  " 

"  What  was  that  you  were  saying  just  now  ?  " 

The  youth  was  frightened  and  did  not  know  what  reply  to 
make. 

"  Don't  be  afraid  of  me  !  I  sha'n't  do  you  any  harm,  and 
moreover,  perhaps  1  may  get  you  out  of  your  trouble.  Speak 
boldly  ! " 

The  youth  told  him  everything  precisely. 

"  Poor  creature  that  I  am  !  There  isn't  a  single  girl  who 
will  marry  me.  Well,  as  I  went  along  I  became  exceedingly 
wretched,  and  in  my  misery  I  said  :  "  If  the  devil  offered  me  a 
bride,  I'd  take  even  her!  " 

The  old  man  laughed  and  said : 

"  Follow  me,  I'll  let  you  choose  a  lovely  bride  for  yourself." 

By-and-by  they  reached  a  lake. 

"  Turn  your  back  to  the  lake  and  walk  backwards,"  said  the 
old  man.  Scarcely  had  the  youth  had  time  to  turn  round  and 
take  a  couple  of  steps,  when  he  found  himself  under  the  water 
and  in  a  white-stone  palace — all  its  rooms  splendidly  furnished, 
cunningly   decorated.     The  old  man  gave  him  to  eat  and  to 

•  Literally,   "  to  all  the  four  sides." 


Б72  R  i  rSS/A  N  FOLK-  ТА  LES. 

drink.     Afterwards  he    introduced   twelve   maidens,  each  one 
more  beautiful  than  the  other. 

"  Choose  whichever  you  like!  whichever  you  choose,  her 
will  I  bestow  upon  you." 

"That's  a  puzzling  job  !  "  said  the  youth  ;  "  give  me  till  to- 
morrow morning  to  think  about  it,  grandfather  !  " 

"  Well,  think  away !  "  said  the  old  man,  and  led  his  guest  to 
a  private  chamber.     The  youth  lay  down  to  sleep  and  thought : 

"  Which  one  shall  I  choose  ?  " 

Suddenly  the  door  opened  ;  a  beautiful  maiden  entered. 

"  Are  you  asleep,  or  not,  good  youth  ?  "  says  she. 

"  No,  fair  maiden !  I  can't  get  to  sleep,  for  I'm  always  think- 
ing which  bride  to  choose." 

"  That's  the  very  reason  I  have  come  to  give  you  counsel. 
You  see,  good  youth,  you've  managed  to  become  the  devil's 
guest.  Now  listen.  If  you  want  to  go  on  living  in  the  white 
world,  then  do  what  I  tell  you.  But  if  you  don't  follow  my 
instructions,  you'll  never  get  out  of  here  alive  !  " 

"  Tell  me  what  to  do,  fair  maiden.  I  won't  forget  it  all 
my  life." 

"  To-morrow  the  fiend  will  bring  you  twelve  maidens,  each  one 
exactly  like  the  others.  But  you  take  a  good  look  and  choose 
me.  A  fly  will  be  sitting  above  my  right  eye — that  will  be  a 
certain  guide  for  you."  And  then  the  fair  maiden  proceeded  to 
tell  him  about  herself,  who  she  was. 

"  Do  you  know  the  priest  of  such  and  such  a  village  ?  "  she 
says.  "  I'm  his  daughter,  the  one  who  disappeared  from  home 
when  nine  years  old.  One  day  my  father  was  angry  with  me, 
and  in  his  wrath  he  said,  "  May  devils  fly  away  with  you  !  "  I 
went  out  on  the  steps  and  began  to  cry.  All  of  a  sudden  the 
fiends  seized  me  and  brought  me  here ;  and  here  I  am  living 
with  them  ! " 

Next  morning  the  old  man  brought  in  the  twelve  fair 
maidens — one  just  like  another — and  ordered  the  youth  to 
choose  his  bride.  He  looked  at  them  and  took  her  above  whose 
right  eye  sat  a  fly.     The  old  man  was  loth  to  give  her  up,  so  he 


LEGENDS.  373 

shifted  the  maidens  about,  and  told  him  to  make  a  fresh  choice. 
The  youth  pointed  out  the  same  one  as  before.  The  fiend 
obliged  him  to  choose  yet  a  third  time.  He  again  guessed 
his  bride  aright. 

"Well,  you're  in  luck!  take  her  home  wi.h  you,"  said  the 
fiend. 

Immediately  the  youth  and  the  fair  maiden  found  themselves 
on  the  shore  of  the  lake,  and  until  they  reached  the  high  road 
they  kept  on  walking  backwards.  Presently  the  devils  came 
rushing  after  them  in  hot  pursuit : 

"  Let  us  recover  our  maiden  !  "   they  cry. 

They  look:  there  are  no  footsteps  going  away  from  the 
lake  ;  all  the  footsteps  lead  into  the  water  !  They  ran  to  and 
fro,  they  searched  everywhere,  but  they  had  to  go  back  empty- 
handed. 

Well,  the  good  youth  brought  his  bride  to  her  village,  and 
stopped  opposite  the  priest's  house.  The  priest  saw  him  and 
sent  out  his  laborer,  saying  : 

"Go  and  ask  who  those  people  are." 

"  We  ?  we're  travellers ;  please  let  us  spend  the  night  in 
your  house,"  they  replied. 

"  I  have  merchants  paying  me  a  visit,"  says  the  priest ; 
"  and  even  without  them  there's  but  little  room  in  the  house," 

"  What  are  you   thinking   of,  father  ?  "     says   one   of  the 
merchants.    "  It's  always  one's  duty  to  accommodate  a  traveller, 
they  won't  interfere  with  us." 
"  Very  well,  let  them  come  in." 

So  they  came  in,  exchanged  greetings,  and  sat  down  on  a 
bench  in  the  back  corner. 

"  Don't  you  know  me,  father  ?  "  presently  asks  the  fair 
maiden.     "  Of  a  surety  I  am  your  own  daughter." 

Then  she  told  him  everything  that  had  happened.  They 
began  to  kiss  and  embrace  each  other,  to  pour  forth  tears  of 
jcy. 

'•  And  who  is  this  man  ?  "    says  the  priest. 

"  That  is  mv  betrothed.     He  brought  me  back  into  the  white 


374  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

world  ;  if  it  hadn't  been  for  him  T  should  have  remained  down 
therefor  ever !  " 

After  this  the  fair  maiden  untied  her  bundle,  and  in  it  were 
gold  and  silver  dishes  :  she  had  carried  them  off  from  the  devils. 
The  merchant  looked  at  them  and  said : 

"  Ah  !  those  are  my  dishes.  One  day  I  was  feasting  with  my 
guests,  and  when  I  got  drunk  I  became  angry  with  my  wife.  To 
the  devil  with  you  !  "  I  exclaimed,  and  began  flinging  from  the 
table,  and  beyond  the  threshold,  whatever  I  could  lay  my  hands 
upon.     At  that  moment  my  dishes  disappeared !  " 

And  in  reality  so  had  it  happened.  When  the  merchant 
mentioned  the  devil's  name,  the  fiend  immediately  appeared  at 
the  threshold,  began  seizing  the  gold  and  silver  wares,  and 
flinging  in  their  place  bits  of  pottery. 

Well,  by  this  accident  the  youth  got  himself  a  capital  bride. 
And  after  he  had  married  her  he  went  back  to  his  parents. 
They  had  long  ago  counted  him  as  lost  to  them  for  ever. 
And  indeed  it  was  no  subject  for  jesting;  he  had  been  away 
from  home  three  whole  years,  and  yet  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  had  not  in  all  spent  more  than  twenty-four  hours  with  the 
devils. 

[A  quaint  version  of  the  legend  on  which  this  story  is  founded  is  given  by  Gervase 
of  Tilbury  in  his  "  Otia  Imperialia,"  whence  the  story  passed  into  the  "  Gesta 
Romanorum"  (cap.  clxii.)  and  spread  widely  over  mediaeval  Europe.  A  certain 
Catalonian  was  so  much  annoyed  one  day  "  by  the  continued  and  inappeasable  crying 
of  his  little  daughter,  that  he  commended  her  to  the  demons."  Whereupon  she  was 
immediately  carried  off.  Seven  years  after  this,  he  learnt  (from  a  man  placed  by  a 
similar  imprecation  in  the  power  of  the  demons,  who  used  him  as  a  vehicle)  that  his 
daughter  was  in  the  interior  of  a  neighboring  mountain,  and  might  be  recovered  if  he 
would  demand  her.  So  he  ascended  to  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  and  there  claimed 
his  child.  She  straightway  appeared  in  miserable  plight,  "  arida,  tetra,  oculis  vagis, 
ossibus  et  nervis  et  pellibus  vix  hserentibus,"  etc.  By  the  judicious  care,  however, 
of  her  now  cautious  parent  she  was  restored  to  physical  and  moral  respectability. 
For  some  valuable  observations  on  this  story  see  Liebrecht's  edition  of  the  "  Otia 
Imperialia,"  pp.  137-9-  1°  the  German  story  of  "  Die  sieben  Raben  "  (Grimm, 
No.  25)  a  father's  "hasty  word"  turns  his  six  sons  into  ravens.] 

When  devils  are  introduced  into  a'  story  of  this  class, 
it  always  assumes  a  grotesque,  if  not  an  absolutely  comic 


LEGENDS.  375 

air.  The  evil  spirits  are  almost  always  duped  and  de- 
feated, and  that  result  is  generally  due  to  their  remarkable 
want  of  intelligence.  For  they  display  in  their  dealings 
with  their  human  antagonists  a  deficiency  of  intellectual 
power  which  almost  amounts  to  imbecility.  The  explana- 
tion of  this  appears  to  be  that  the  devils  of  European  folk- 
lore have  nothing  in  common  with  the  rebellious  angels  of 
Miltonic  theology  beyond  their  vague  denomination;  nor 
can  any  but  a  nominal  resemblance  be  traced  between 
their  chiefs  or  "  grandfathers "  and  the  thunder-smitten 
but  still  majestic  "  Lucifer,  Son  of  the  Morning."  The 
demon  rabble  of  "  Popular  Tales  "  are  merely  the  lubber 
fiends  of  heathen  mythology,  beings  endowed  with  super- 
natural might,  but  scantily  provided  with  mental  power ; 
all  of  terrific  manual  clutch,  but  of  weak  intellectual  grasp. 
And  so  the  hardy  mortal  who  measures  his  powers  against 
theirs,  even  in  those  cases  in  which  his  strength  has  not 
been  intensified  by  miraculous  agencies,  easily  overcomes 
or  deludes  the  slow-witted  monsters  with  whom  he  strives 
— whether  his  antagonist  be  a  Celtic  or  Teutonic  Giant,  or 
a  French  Ogre,  or  a  Norse  Troll,  or  a  Greek  Drakos  or 
Lamia,  or  a  Lithuanian  Laume,  or  a  Russian  Snake  or 
Koshchei  or  Baba-Yaga,  or  an  Indian  Rakshasa  or  Pisacha, 
or  any  other  member  of  the  many  species  of  fiends  for 
which,  in  Christian  parlance,  the  generic  name  is  that  of 
"  devils." 

There  is  no  great  richness  of  invention  manifested  in 
the  stories  which  deal  with  the  outwitting  of  evil  spirits. 
The  same  devices  are  in  almost  all  cases  resorted  to,  and 
their  effect  is  invariable.  The  leading  characters  undergo 
certain  transmutations  as  the  scene  of  the  story  is  shifted, 
but  their  mutual  relations  remain  constant.     Thus,  in  a 


376  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES. 

German  story  *  we  find  a  schoolmaster  deceiving  the 
devil ;  in  one  of  its  Slavonic  counterparts  f  a  gypsy  de- 
ludes a  snake ;  in  another,  current  among  the  Baltic  Ka> 
shoubes,  in  place  of  the  snake  figures  a  giant  so  huge  that 
the  thumb  of  his  glove  serves  as  a  shelter  for  the  hero  of 
the  tale — one  which  is  closely  connected  with  that  which 
tells  of  Thor  and  the  giant  Skrymir. 

The  Russian  stories  in  which  devils  are  tricked  by 
mortals  closely  resemble,  for  the  most  part,  those  which 
are  current  in  so  many  parts  of  Europe.  The  hero  of  the 
tale  squeezes  whey  out  of  a  piece  of  cheese  or  curd  which 
be  passes  off  as  a  stone  ;  he  induces  the  fleet  demon  to 
compete  with  his  "  Hop  o'  my  Thumb  "  the  hare  ;  he  sets 
the  strong  demon  to  wrestle  with  his  "  greybeard "  the 
bear ;  he  frightens  the  "  grandfather "  of  the  fiends  by 
proposing  to  fling  that  potentate's  magic  staff  so  high  in 
the  air  that  it  will  never  come  down ;  and  he  persuades 
his  diabolical  opponents  to  keep  pouring  gold  into  a  per- 
forated hat  or  sack.  Sometimes,  however,  a  less  familiar 
incident  occurs.  Thus  in  a  story  from  the  Tambof  Gov- 
ernment, Zachary  the  Unlucky  is  sent  by  the  tailor,  his 
master,  to  fetch  a  fiddle  from  a  wolf-fiend.  The  demon 
agrees  to  let  him  have  it  on  condition  that  he  spends  three 
years  in  continually  weaving  nets  without  ever  going  to 
sleep.  Zachary  sets  to  work,  but  at  the  end  of  a  month 
he  grows  drowsy.  The  wolf  asks  if  he  is  asleep.  "  No, 
I'm  not  asleep,"  he  replies  ;  "  but  I'm  thinking  which  fish 
there  are  most  of  in  the  river — big  ones  or  little  ones." 
The  wolf  offers  to  go  and  enquire,  and  spends  three  oj 
four  months  in  solving  the  problem.  Meanwhile  Zachary 
sleeps,  taking  care,  however,  to  be  up  and  at  work  when 

•  Haltrich,  No.  27.  t  Afanasief,  v.  No.  25,. 


LEGENDS.  377 

the  wolf  returns  to  say  that  the  big  fishes  are  in  the  ma 
ioritv. 

Time  passes,  and  again  Zachary  begins  to  nod.  The 
wolf  enquires  if  he  has  gone  to  sleep,  but  is  told  that  he 
is  awake,  but  engrossed  by  the  question  as  to  "  which  folks 
are  riiere  most  of  in  the  world — the  living  or  the  dead." 
The  wolf  goes  out  to  count  them,  and  Zachary  sleeps  in 
comfort,  till  just  before  it  comes  back  to  say  that  the  living 
are  more  numerous  than  the  dead.  B/  the  time  the  wolf- 
fiend  has  made  a  third  journey  in  order  to  settle  a  doubt 
which  Zachary  describes  as  weighing  on  his  mind — as  to 
the  numerical  relation  of  the  large  beasts  to  the  small — 
the  three  years  have  passed  away.  So  the  wolf-fiend  is 
obliged  to  part  with  his  fiddle,  and  Zachary  carries  it  back 
to  the  tailor  in  triumph.* 

The  demons  not  unfrequently  show  themselves  capable 
of  being  actuated  by  gratitude.  Thus,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  the  story  of  the  Awful  Drunkard  f  represents  the 
devil  himself  as  being  grateful  to  a  man  who  has  rebuked 
an  irascible  old  woman  for  unjustly  blaming  the  Prince  of 
Darkness.  In  a  skazka  from  the  Orenburg  Government, 
a  lad  named  Vanka  [Jack]  is  set  to  watch  his  father's 
turnip-field  by  night.  Presently  comes  a  boy  who  fills  two 
huge  sacks  with  turnips,  and  vainly  tries  to  carry  them  off. 
While  he  is  tugging  away  at  them  he  catches  sight  of 
Vanka,  and  immediately  asks  him  to  help  him  home  with 
his  load.  Vanka  consents,  and  carries  the  turnips  to  a 
cottage,  wherein  is  seated  "  an  old  grey-beard  with  horns 
on  his  head,"  who  receives  him  kindly  and  offers  him  a 
quantity  of  gold  as  a  recompense  for  his  trouble.  But, 
acting  on  the  instructions  he  has  received  from  the  boy, 

*  Khudyakof,  No.  1 14.  1  Chap.  i.  p.  46. 


378  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALEb. 

Vanka  will  take  nothing  but  the  greybeard's  lute,  the 
'sounds  of  which  exercise  a  magic  power  over  all  living 
creatures.* 

One  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  stories  of  this  class 
is  that  of  the  man  who  unwittingly  blesses  the  devil.  As 
a  specimen  of  its  numerous  variants  we  may  take  the  open- 
ing of  a  skazka  respecting  the  origin  of  brandy. 

"  There  was  a  moujik  who  had  a  wife  and  seven  chil- 
dren, and  one  day  he  got  ready  to  go  afield,  to  plough. 
When  his  horse  was  harnessed,  and  everything  ready,  he 
ran  indoors  to  get  some  bread ;  but  when  he  got  there, 
and  looked  in  the  cupboard,  there  was  nothing  there  but 
a  single  crust.  This  he  carried  off  bodily  and  drove 
away. 

"  He  reached  his  field  and  began  ploughing.  When 
he  had  ploughed  up  half  of  it,  he  unharnessed  his  horse 
and  turned  it  out  to  graze.  After  that  he  was  just  going 
to  eat  the  bread,  when  he  said  to  himself, 

" '  Why  didn't  I  leave  this  crust  for  my  children  ? ' 

"  So  after  thinking  about  it  for  awhile,  he  set  it  aside. 

"  Presently  a  little  demon  came  sidling  up  and  carried 
off  the  bread.  The  moujik  returned  and  looked  about 
everywhere,  but  no  bread  was  to  be  seen.  However,  all 
he  said  was,  '  God  be  with  him  who  took  it !  ' 

"  The  little  demon  f  ran  off  to  the  devil,  X  and  cried  : 

"  '  Grandfather  !     I've  stolen  Uncle  Sidor's  §  bread  ! ' 

"  '  Well,  what  did  he  say  ? ' 

"  '  He  said,  "  God  be  with  him  !  " 

"  '  Be  off  with  you  ! '  says  the  devil.  '  Hire  youself  to 
him  for  three  years.' 

"  So  the  little  demon  ran  back  to  the  moujik." 

•  Afanasief,  vii-,  No.  14. 

t  Byesenok,  diminutive  of  Byes.  %  Chort.  §   Isidore. 


LEGENDS.  379 

i 

The  rest  of  the  story  tells  how  the  imp  taught  Isidore 
to  make  corn-brandy,  and  worked  for  him  a  long  time 
faithfully.  But  at  last  one  day  Isidore  drank  so  much 
brandy  that  he  fell  into  a  drunken  sleep.  From  this  he 
was  roused  by  the  imp,  whereupon  he  exclaimed  in  a  rage, 
"  Go  to  the  Devil  !  "  and  straightway  the  "  little  demon  " 
disappeared.* 

In  another  version  of  the  story,  f  when  the  peasant 
finds  that  his  crust  has  disappeared,  he  exclaims — 

"  Here's  a  wonder  !  I've  seen  nobody,  and  yet  some- 
body has  carried  off  my  crust !  Well,  here's  good  luck  to 
him  !  %     I  daresay  I  shall  starve  to  death." 

When  Satan  heard  what  had  taken  place,  he  ordered 
that  the  peasant's  crust  should  be  restored.  So  the  demon 
who  had  stolen  it  "  turned  himself  into  a  good  youth,"  and 
became  the  peasant's  hireling.  When  a  drought  was  im- 
pending, he  scattered  the  peasant's  seed-corn  over  a 
swamp  ;  when  a  wet  season  was  at  hand,  he  sowed  the 
slopes  of  the  hills.  In  each  instance  his  forethought  en- 
abled his  master  to  fill  his  barns  while  the  other  peasants 
lost  their  crops. 

[A  Moravian  version  of  this  tale  will  be  found  in  "  Der  schwarze  Knirps"  (Wen- 
zip,  No.  15,  p.  67).  In  another  Moravian  story  in  the  same  collection  (No.  8)  entitled 
"Der  bose  Geist  im  Dienste,"  an  evil  spint  steals  the  food  which  a  man  had  left 
outside  his  house  for  poor  passers  by.  When  the  demon  returns  to  hell  he  finds  its 
gates  closed,  and  he  is  informed  by  "  the  oldest  of  the  devils,"  that  he  must  expiate 
his  crime  by  a  three  years'  service  on  earth. 

A  striking  parallel  to  the  Russian  and  the  former  of  the  Moravian  stories  is  offered 
by  "a  legend  of  serpent  worship,"  from  Bhaunagar  in  Kathiawad.  A  certain  king 
had  seven  wives,  one  of  whom  was  badly  treated.  Feeling  hungry  one  day,  she 
scraped  out  of  the  pots  which  had  been  given  her  to  wash  some  remains  of  rice  boiled 
in  milk,  set  the  food  on  one  side,  and  then  went  to  bathe.     During  her  absencj  J 

*  Erienvein,  No.  33.     From  the  Tula  Govemmen 

t  Quoted  from  Borichefsky,  by  Afanasief,  Legendui,  p.  1S2. 

I  Emy  na  zdorovie  I  "  Good  health  to  him!  " 


380  R  USSIA  N  FOLK- TALES. 

female  Naga  or  (supernatural  snake-being)  ate  up  the  rice,  and  then  "entering  hei 
hole,  sat  there,  resolved  to  bite  the  woman  if  she  should  curse  her,  but  not  otherwise." 
When  the  woman  returned,  and  found  her  meal  had  been  stolen,  she  did  not  lose  her 
temper,  but  only  said,  "  May  the  stomach  of  the  eater  be  cooled!  "  When  the  Naga 
heard  this,  she  emerged  from  her  hole  and  said,  "  Well  done!  I  now  regard  ycu  as 
my  daughter,"  etc.  (From  the  "  Indian  Antiquary,"  Bombay,  No.  i,  1872,  pp.  6,  7.)] 

Sometimes  the  demon  of  the  legenda  bears  a  close  re- 
semblance to  the  snake  of  the  skazka.  Thus,  an  evil  spirit 
is  described  as  coming  every  night  at  twelve  o'clock  to  the 
chamber  of  a  certain  princess,  and  giving  her  no  rest  till 
the  dawn  of  day.  A  soldier — the  fairy  prince  in  a  lower 
form — comes  to  her  rescue,  and  awaits  the  arrival  of  the 
fiend  in  her  room,  which  he  has  had  brilliantly  lighted. 
Exactly  at  midnight  up  flies  the  evil  spirit,  assumes  the 
form  of  a  man,  and  tries  to  enter  the  room.  But  he  is 
stopped  by  the  soldier,  who  persuades  him  to  play  cards 
with  him  for  fillips,  tricks  him  in  various  ways,  and  fillips 
him  to  such  effect  with  a  species  of  "  three-man  beetle," 
that  the  demon  beats  a  hasty  retreat. 

The  next  night  Satan  sends  another  devil  to  the  palace. 
The  result  is  the  same  as  before,  and  the  process  is  re- 
peated every  night  for  a  whole  month.  At  the  end  of  that 
time  "  Grandfather  Satan  "  himself  confronts  the  soldier, 
but  he  receives  so  tremendous  a  beating  that  he  flies  back 
howling  "  to  his  swamp."  After  a  time,  the  soldier  induce*, 
the  whole  of  the  fiendish  party  to  enter  his  knapsack,  pre 
vents  them  from  getting  out  again  by  signing  it  with  a 
cross,  and  then  has  it  thumped  on  an  anvil  to  his  heart's 
content.  Afterwards  he  carries  it  about  on  his  back,  the 
fiends  remaining  under  it  all  the  while.  But  at  last  some 
women  open  it,  during  his  absence  from  a  cottage  in  which 
he  has  left  it,  and  out  rush  the  fiends  with  a  crash  and  a 
roar.  Meeting  the  soldier  on  his  way  back  to  the  cottage, 
they  are  so  frightened  that  they  fling  themselves  into  the 


LEGENDS.  3S1 

pool  below  a  mill-wheel  ;  and  there,  the  story  declares, 
they  still  remain.* 

This  "  legend  "  is  evidently  nothing  more  than  an  adap- 
tation of  one  of  the  tales  about  the  dull  demons  of  olden 
times,  whom  the  Christian  story-teller  has  transformed  into 
Satan  and  his  subject  fiends. 

By  way  of  a  conclusion  to  this  chapter — which  might 
be  expanded  indefinitely,  so  numerous  are  the  stories  of 
the  class  of  which  it  treats — we  will  take  the  moral  tale  of 
"  The  Gossip's  Bedstead."  f  A  certain  peasant,  it  relates, 
was  so  poor  that,  in  order  to  save  himself  from  starvation, 
he  took  to  sorcery.  After  a  time  he  became  an  adept  in 
the  black  art,  and  contracted  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  fiendish  races.  When  his  son  had  reached  man's 
estate,  the  peasant  saw  it  was  necessary  to  find  him  a 
bride,  so  he  set  out  to  seek  one  among  "  his  friends  the 
devils."  On  arriving  in  their  realm  he  soon  found  what 
he  wanted,  in  the  person  of  a  girl  who  had  drunk  herself 
to  death,  and  who,  in  common  with  other  women  who  had 
died  of  drink,  was  employed  by  the  devils  as  a  water 
carrier.  Her  employers  at  once  agreed  to  give  her  in 
marriage  to  the  son  of  their  friend,  and  a  wedding  feast 
was  instantly  prepared.  While  the  consequent  revelry  was 
in  progress,  Satan  offered  to  present  to  the  bridegroom  a 
receipt  which  a  father  had  given  to  the  devils  when  he 
sold  them  his  son.  But  when  the  receipt  was  sought  for — 
the  production  of  which  would  have  enabled  the  bride- 
groom to  claim  the  youth  in  question  as  his  slave — it  could 
not  be  found  ;  a  certain  devil  had  carried  it  off,  and  re- 

*  Afanasief,  v.  No.  43. 

t  Afanasief,  Legendui,  No-  27.     From  the   Saratof  Government.     This  story  if 
merely  one  of  the  numerous  Slavonic  variants  of  a  tale  familar  to  many  lands. 


382  RUSSIAN  FOLK-TALES, 

fused  to  say  where  he  had  hidden  it.  In  vain  did  his 
master  cause  him  to  be  beaten  with  iron  clubs,  he  remained 
obstinately  mute.     At  length  Satan  exclaimed — 

"  Stretch  him  on  the  Gossip's  Bedstead  !  " 

As  soon  as  the  refractory  devil  heard  these  words,  he 
was  so  frightened  that  he  surrendered  the  receipt,  which 
was  handed  over  to  the  visitor.  Astonished  at  the  result-, 
the  peasant  enquired  what  sort  of  bedstead  that  was  which 
had  been  mentioned  with  so  much  effect. 

'"'Well,  I'll  tell  you,  but  don't  you  tell  anyone  else," 
replied  Satan,  after  hesitating  for  a  time.  "  That  bedstead 
is  made  for  us  devils,  and  for  our  relations,  connexions, 
and  gossips.  It  is  all  on  fire,  and  it  runs  on  wheels,  and 
turns  round  and  round." 

When  the  peasant  heard  this,  fear  came  upon  him,  and 
he  jumped  up  from  his  seat  and  fled  away  as  fast  as  he 
could. 


At  this  point,  though  much  still  remains  to  be  said,  I 
will  for  the  present  bring  my  remarks  to  a  close.  Incom- 
plete as  is  the  account  I  have  given  of  the  Skazkas,  it  may 
yet,  I  trust,  be  of  use  to  students  who  wish  to  compare  as 
many  types  as  possible  of  the  Popular  Tale.  I  shall  be 
glad  if  it  proves  of  service  to  them.  I  shall  be  still  more 
glad  if  I  succeed  in  interesting  the  general  reader  in  the 
tales  of  the  Russian  People,  and  through  them,  in  the  lives 
of  those  Russian  men  and  women  of  low  degree  who  are 
wont  to  tell  them,  those  Russian  children  who  love  to  hear 
them. 


383 


INDEX. 


AD,  or  Hades,  303 

Anepou  and  Satou,  story  of,  122 

Andrew,  St.,  legend  about,  348 

Arimaspians,    190 

Awful  Drunkard,  story  of  the,  46 

BABA   YAGA,   her    name    and 

nature,  146;  stories  about,  103- 

107-148-166-2 54-256 
Back,  cutting  strips  from,  155 
Bad  Wife,  story  of  the,  52 
Beanstalk  stories,  35,  296 
Beer  and  Corn,  legend  of,  339 
Birds,  legends  about,  335 
Blind  Man  and  Cripple,  story  of 

the,  246 
Bluebeard's  Chamber,  109 
Brandy,  legend   about  origin  of, 

373 
Bridge-building  incident,  306 
Brothers,  enmity  between,  93 
Brushes,  magic,  151 

CAT,  Whittington's,  56 

Chort,  or  devil,  35 

Christ's  Brother,  legend  of,  338 

Chudo  Morskoe,  or  water  mon- 
ster, 143 

Chudo  Yudo,  a  many-headed 
monster,  S3 

Clergy :  their  bad  reputation  in 
folk-tales,  40 

Coffin  Lid,  story  of  the,  314 

Combs,  magic,  151 

Creation  of  Man,  legends  about, 

ЗЗО 
Cross  Surety,  story  of  the,  4c. 
Curses,  legends  about,  363 


DAYS  of  the  Week,  legends 
about,  206-212 

Dead  Mother,  story  of  the,  32 

Demons :  part  played  in  the  Skaz- 
kas  by,  361  ;  souls  of  babes 
stolen  by,  363  ;  legends  about 
children  devoted  to,  364 ;  about 
persons  who  give  themselves 
to,  367  ;  dulness  of,  375  ;  tricks 
played  upon,  375;  gratitude  of, 
377  ;  resemblance  of  to  snakes, 
380 

Devil,   legends    about,   330-331- 

333 
Dnieper,  Volga,  and  Dvina,  story 

of  the,  217 
Dog,  legends  about,  330-332 
Dog   and   Corpse,   story   of   the, 

316 
Dolls,    or   puppets,   magic,    167  - 

169 
Don  and  Shat,  story  of  the  rivers, 

2.J5 
Drink,  Russian  peasant's  love  of, 

42  ;  stories  about,  48 
Durak,  or  Ninny,  stories  about, 

23-62 

EGGS,  lives   of  mythical  beings 

connected  with,  119-124 
Elijah,  traditions  about,  341-343 
Elijah   and   Nicholas,  legend  of, 

344 
Emilian  the  Fool,  story  of,  269 
Evil,  personified,  186 

FIDDLER  in  Hell,  story  of  the, 
3°3 


,384 


INDEX. 


FIE. 

Fiend,  story  of  the,  24 

Fool  and  Birch  Tree,  story  of  the, 

62 
Fools,  stories  about,  62 
Fortune,  stories  about,  203 

FOX 

Fox-Physician,  story  of  the,  296 
Fcx-Wailer,  story  of  the.  35 
Friday,  legend  of,  207 
Frost,  story  of,  221 

GEORGE,  St.,  legends  about, 
348 ;  the  Wolves  and,  349 ;  the 
Gypsy  and,  350  ;  the  people  of 
Troyan  and,  351 

Ghost  stories,  295-328 

Gold-Men,  231 

Golden  Bird,  the  Zhar  Ptitsa  or, 
291 

Golovikha,  or  Mayoress,  story  of 
the,  55 

Gore,  or  Woe,  story  of,  192 

Gossip's  Bedstead,  story  of  the, 

Gravestone,  story  of  the  Ride  on 

the,  308 
Greece,  Vampires  in,  323 
Gypsy,  story  of   St.  George  and 

the,  350 

HADES,  303 

Hasty  Word,  story  of  the,  370 
Head,  story  of  the  trunkless,  230 
Headless   Princess,  story  of  the, 

276 
Heaven-tree  Myth,  298 
Helena  the  Fair,  story  of,  262 
He'.l,  story  of  the  Fiddler  in,  303 
Hills,  legend  of  creation  of,  233 

IVAN  POPYALOF,  story  of,  79 

К  АТОМА,  story  of,  246 
Koshchei   the   Deathless,  stories 

of,  96-115 
Kruchina,  or  Grief,  201 
Kuzma    and    Demian,   the    holy 

Smiths,  82 


LAME  and  Blind  Heroes,  story 

of  the,  246    1 
Laments  for  the  dead,  36 
Leap,  bride  won  by  a,  266-269 
Legends,  329-382 
Leshy,  or  Wood-demon,  stoiy  ji 

the,  213 
Life,  Water  of,  237 
Likho  the  One-Eyed,  story  of,  1S6 
Luck,  stories  about,  203-206 

MARYA   MOREVNA,  story  off 

97 
Medea's  Cauldron  incident,  "559, 

368 
Miser,  story  of  the,  60 
Mizgir,  or  Spider,  story  of  the,  68 
Morfei  the  Cook,  story  of,  234 
Mouse,  legends  about  the,  334 
Mythology,  &c.  Personifications 
of  Good  and  Evil,  77 ;  the 
Snake,  78 ;  Daylight  eclipsed 
by  a  Snake,  81 ;  the  Chudo- 
Yudo,  83;  the  Norka-Beast, 
86  ;  the  Usuinya-Bird,  95  ;  Kosh- 
chei the  Deathless,  96-116; 
the  Bluebeard's  Chamber  myth, 
109 ;  stories  about  external 
hearts  and  fatal  eggs,  &c,  119— 
124;  the  Water  Snake,  129; 
the  Tsar  Morskoi  or  Water 
King,  130-141 ;  the  King  Bear, 
142;  the  Water-Chudo,  143; 
the  Idol,  144;  Female  embodi- 
ments of  Evil,  146;  the  Baba 
Yaga,  146-166;  magic  dolls  or 
puppets,  167;  the  story  of  Ver- 
lioka,  170;  the  Supernatural 
Witch,  170-183;  The  Sun's 
Sister  and  the  Dawn,  17S-185; 
Likho  or  Evil,  186-1S7  ;  roly- 
phemus  and  the  Arimaspian?, 
190;  Gore  or  Woe,  192;  Nuzh- 
da  or  Ne.ed,  199;  Kruchina  or 
Grief,  201  ;  Zlu'.dni,  19};  stories 
about  Luck,  :оз~2о6 ;  Friday, 
206 ;  Wednesday,  20S  ;  Sunday, 
211 ;  the  Leshy  or  Woodsprite. 


INDEX. 


385 


213;  stories  about  Rivers,  215- 
221  ;  about  Frost,  221  ;  about 
the  Whirlwind,  232 ;  Morfei, 
234 ;  Oh  !  235  the ;  Waters  of 
Life  and  Death,  237-242 ;  Sym- 
plegades,  243 ;  Waters  of 
Strength  and  Weakness,  243- 
245 ;  Magic  Horses,  249,  264 ; 
a  Magic  Pike,  269-273 ;  Witch- 
craft stories,  273-295 ;  the  Zhar 
Ptitsa  or  Glow-Bird,  2S9-292 ; 
upper-world  ideas,  296 ;  the 
heaven-tree  myth,  296-302 ; 
lower-world  ideas,  303;  Ghost- 
stories,  308 ;  stories  about  Vam- 
pires, 313-322  ;  home  and  origin 
of  Vampirism,  323-328 ;  legends 
about  Saints,  the  Devil,  &c, 
329;  Perun,  the  thunder-god, 
341 ;  superstitions  about  light- 
ing, 343 ;  legends  about  St. 
George  and  the  Wolves,  349; 
old  Slavonian  gods  changed 
into  demons,  362 ;  power  at- 
tributed to  curses,  364 ;  dulness 
of  demons,  375  ;  their  resem- 
blance to  snakes,  3S0 

NATIONAL  character,  how  far 

illustrated  by  popular  tales,  18 
Need,  story  of  Nuzhda  or,  199 
Nicholas-St.,  legends  about,  343 ; 

his  kindness,  352-354  ;  story  of 

the  Priest  of,  355 
Nicholas,   St.,  and   Elijah,  storv 

of,  343 
Norka,  story  of  the,  86 

OH  !  demon  named,  235 
One-Eyed  Likho,  story  of,  186 
One-Eyes,  Ukraine  legend  of,  190 

PEEWIT,  legend  about  the   335 
Perun,  the  thunder-god,  341 
Pike,  story  of  a  magic,  269 
Polyphemus,  190 
Poor  Widow,  story  of  the,  336 
Popes,  Russian  Priests  called,  36 


Popular  Tales,  their  meaning  &c, 

16-1S;  human  and  supernatural 

agents  in,  75-78 
Popyalof,  story  of  Ivan,  79 
Priest    with    the    Greedy    Eyes, 

story  of  the,  255 
Princess  Helena  the  Fair,  story  of 

the,  262 
Purchased  Wife,  story  of  the,  44 

RIDE  on  the  Gravestone,  story 

of  the,  30S 
Rip  van  Winkle  story,  310 
Rivers,  legends  about,  215-221 
Russian  children,  appearance  of, 

383 

Russian  Peasants ;  their  dramatic 
talent,  19  ;  pictures  of  their  life 
contained  in  folk- tales,  21;  a 
village  soiree,  24;  a  courtship, 
31;  a  death,  32;  preparations 
for  a  funeral,  33 ;  wailing  over 
the  dead,  35;  a  burial,  36;  re- 
ligious feeling  of,  40 ;  passion 
for  drink,  42  ;  humor,  48 ;  their 
jokes  against  women,  36;  their 
dislike  of  avarice,  59;  their 
jokes  about  simpletons,  62 

Rye,  legends  about,  332 

SAINTS,  legends  about,  341 ; 
Ilya  or  Elijah,  341-343 ;  story 
of  Elijah  and  Nicholas,  344; 
St.  Andrew,  348 ;  St.  George, 
348-352 ;  St.  Nicholas,  352-354; 
St.  Kasian,  352 

Scissors  story,  49 

Semiletka,  story  of,  44 

Shroud,  story  of  the,  311 

Skazkas  or  Russian  folk-tales, 
their  value  as  pictures  of  Rus- 
sian life,  19-23 ;  occurrence  of 
word  skazka  in,  23 ;  their  open- 
ings, 62  ;  their  endings,  83 

Smith  and  the  Demon,  story  of 
the,  70 

Snake,  the  mythical,  his  appear- 
ance, 7S ;  story   of  Ivan  Popy- 


386 


INDEX. 


alof,  79;  story  of  the  Water 
Snake,  126;  Snake  Husbands, 
129;  legend  about  the  Common 
Snake,  334 ;  likeness  between 
Snakes  and  Demons,  380 

Soldier  and  Demon,  story  of,  380 

Soldier  and  the  Devil,  legend 
about,  366 

Soldier  and  the  Vampire,  story  of 
the,  318 

Soldier's  Midnight  Watch,  story 
of  the,  279 

Sozh  and  Dnieper,  story  of,  216 

Sparrow,  legends  about  the,  335 

Spasibo  or  Thank  You,  202 

Spider,  story  of  the,  6S 

Stakes  driven  through  Vampires, 
326-328 

Stepmothers,  character  of,  94 

Strength  and  Weakness,  Waters 
of,  243 

Suicides  and  Vampires,  327 

Sunday,  tales  about,  211 

Sun's  Sister,  178-182 

Swallow,  legends  about  the,  335 

Swan  Maidens,  129 

Symplegades,  243 

TEREMA  or  Upper  Chambers, 

182 
Three  Copecks,  story  of  the,  56 
Treasure,  story  of  the,  36 
Troyan,   City  of,  legend    about, 

351 
Two  Corpses,  story  of  the,  316 
Two  Friends,  story  of  the,  309 

UJAK  or  Snake,  126 
Unwashed,  story  of  the,  366 
Usuinya-Bird,  95 
VAMPIRES,  stories  about,  313- 

322  ;  account  of   the  belief  in, 

322-328 
Vasilissa  the  Fair,  story  of,  158 
Vazuza  and  Volga/story  of,  215 


Vechernitsa  or  Village  Soiree.  24 

Verlioka,  story  of,  170 

Vieszcy,  the  Kashoube  Vampire, 

325 
Vikhor  or  the   Whirlwind,  story 

of,  232-244 
Volga,  story  of  Vazuza  and,  215  , 

of  Dnieper  and  Dvina  and,  21; 
Vy,  the  Servian,  83 

WARLOCK,  story  of  the,  292 
Water  King  and  Vasilissa  the 
Wise,  story  of  the,  113 
Water  Snake,  story  of  the,  126 
Wraters  of   Life  and   Death,  30- 

237 
Waters  of  Strength  and   Weak 

ness,  243 
Wednesday,  legend  of,  208 
Week,  Days  of  the,  206-21 
Whirlwind,  story  of  the,  232 
Whittington's  Cat,  56-58 
Wife,  story  of  the  Bad,  49 ;  aboul 

a  Good,  56 
Wife-Gaining  Leap,  stories  of  a, 

266-269 
Witch,  story  of  the,  171 
Witch,  story  cf  the  Dead,  34 
Witch  and  Sun's  Sister,  story  ( ' 

the,  178 
Witch  Girl,  story  of  the,  274 
Witchcraft,  170-183,  273-295 
Woe,  story  of,  193 
Wolf -fiend,  story  of  a,  376 
Wolves,  traditions  about,  349 
Women,  jokes  about,  49-56 

YAGA  BABA.    See  Baba  Yagj. 
Youth,  Fountain  of,  72 

ZHAR  Ptitsa  or  Glow  Bird,  2S9- 

292 
Zluidni,  malevolent  beings  callei. 

201 


